Binance and Coinbase Assist in West Africa Scam Crackdown

The operation, hosted by the UK National Crime Agency in London from October 6 to 9, brought together police units from Ghana, Nigeria, and the United States to dismantle networks running cryptocurrency investment scams and impersonation fraud. In Ghana, police raided a site in Sasaabi, arresting 19 individuals and seizing 303 electronic devices. Authorities also rescued 117 people who had been trafficked into the country and forced to work for these criminal operations. A separate enforcement action in Nigeria's Delta State led to the arrest of nine additional suspects.

Private-sector involvement proved central to the investigation. Coinbase reported preventing over $415,000 in potential losses and identifying more than 65 targeted victims. Along with Binance and blockchain intelligence firms like Chainalysis and Elliptic, the exchanges traced illicit transactions to help authorities map the relationships between scam centers and their financial infrastructure. While $11 million in assets was identified as potentially freezable, officials have not yet confirmed the total value of recovered funds or seized cryptocurrency.

Meta also took aggressive action against the digital infrastructure supporting these groups, removing more than 3.7 million accounts, pages, and groups on Facebook and Instagram. Many of these accounts were used to impersonate residents of the United Kingdom and United States to solicit funds through fake investment offers and romance scams. As investigators continue to process the evidence, the FBI noted that cryptocurrency-related investment fraud remains a massive challenge, with reported losses in the U.S. reaching $7.2 billion in 2025.