FBI Director Kash Patel Claims ‘Operation Blackout’ Recovered $17B From Scammers Targeting the Elderly

FBI Director Kash Patel‘s Operation Blackout is taking aim at global scammers who target elderly Americans and their life savings.

“These are towns, these are cities,” Patel, 46, told Fox News Digital on Tuesday, September 29 of foreign compounds which he says are operated by crime syndicates and staffed with trafficked workers. “These are actual villages with structures where they force people into forced labor.”

He added, “Unfortunately, the majority of the targets are senior citizens in America…Our initiative, Operation Blackout, is to prevent, disrupt, and dismantle.”

According to Patel, these large criminal networks are spread throughout “central and sub-Saharan Africa” as well as Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and target the elderly through online friendships.

A DOJ Scam Center Strike Force team reportedly assisted “in the taking down of 13 Chinese-run scam compounds” in Madagascar earlier this month, a press release issued by the Department of Justice stated.

“If Chinese organized crime can buy a custom website and a money laundering service the way you order takeout, then every American with a retirement account is in the blast radius,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said, per the release. “My Strike Force will continue to dismantle Chinese organized crime, those who facilitate it, and protect Main Street America.”

Patel told Fox News Digital that his Operation Blackout has seized approximately $17 billion so far, while the press release states that the Scam Center Strike Force has “restrained” approximately $938 million, including the recent Madagascar bust.