The FBI's Recovery Asset Team has blocked more than $1 billion in attempted cyber theft since January 2025 — a 16 percent increase over the same period under the previous administration, the bureau told Breitbart News on Thursday.
FBI Director Kash Patel, in figures the FBI Office of Public Affairs provided exclusively to Breitbart News, credited the total to what the bureau described as a wholesale rebuild of its cyber operations.
"This is the latest success in this FBI's total overhaul in our ability to crush cyber criminals. Our Recovery Asset Team's $1 billion in denied theft since January 2025 — a 16% increase since the same period under the previous administration — shows we are built for the mission," Patel said. "We're cutting off the criminal actors early, blowing up almost $20 billion worth of scam compounds overseas with our work through Operation Blackout, and completely modernizing our capability to stay on top of a constantly changing threat landscape. This is no longer an FBI that waits to act — this FBI is moving quickly, efficiently, and decisively in ways never seen before."
The Recovery Asset Team runs the bureau's Financial Fraud Kill Chain, a process that races to freeze fraudulent wire transfers by coordinating with banks before the money moves beyond reach. In 2025, the team initiated roughly 3,900 such actions against more than $1.1 billion in attempted theft and froze $679 million — a 58 percent success rate, according to the FBI's most recent Internet Crime Complaint Center report.
Ben Williamson, an assistant director in the FBI Office of Public Affairs, tied the recovery figures to Operation Blackout, the bureau's campaign against overseas scam compounds. Williamson said the operation has seized roughly $17 billion, arrested hundreds of suspects, freed thousands of trafficked workers, warned more than 10,000 Americans before they lost money, and prevented an estimated $660 million in losses.
Williamson said older Americans make up the bulk of the victims. The bureau has referred 99 victims for suicide intervention, seized 584 scam websites, and sent 7,670 fraudulent accounts to private companies for action, according to Fox News Digital.
In a separate operation, the FBI Cleveland disrupted a Chinese phishing platform linked to nearly $1.9 billion in losses worldwide under Operation Riptide. In April, the FBI and Justice Department announced more than one million cybercrime complaints filed in 2025 — the first time in the Internet Crime Complaint Center's history — reporting $20.9 billion in losses, with adults 60 and older accounting for $7.7 billion of that total.
The announcement lands alongside news the bureau would rather not be making. WSB-TV Channel 2 in Atlanta reported Monday that the hacking group ShinyHunters claims it breached an FBI hiring and recruiting system and obtained sensitive information about FBI employees and job applicants. The same group is linked to a cyberattack that disrupted schools and colleges across Georgia, including Georgia Tech, Emory University and Fulton County Schools.
Emsisoft threat intelligence analyst Luke Connolly told Channel 2 that even if only part of the group's claims are true, the consequences could reach well beyond identity theft.
"The concern is that this information could potentially help criminals or even foreign governments identify and target FBI agents," Connolly said, adding that a hack of this kind would be "majorly embarrassing at a minimum, and potentially catastrophic for agents."
ShinyHunters claims to have obtained names, Social Security numbers and details that could link some FBI personnel to sensitive assignments. The group has since removed its message to the FBI from its dark web site. The FBI says it is investigating the incident, including whether hackers successfully gained access to its systems and what information, if any, may have been compromised.
Dutch authorities recently arrested a suspected member of the group. Following that arrest, FBI Assistant Director Brett Leatherman issued a warning to cybercriminals: "The longer you stay in this, the more we learn about you. You know how to find us, and we know how to find you."
The recovery numbers arrive as the bureau pushes a public case that its cyber shop has changed direction under Patel. Whether that case holds will depend on how the ShinyHunters investigation unfolds — and on whether the next set of IC3 figures keeps the freeze rate climbing or hands critics a fresh set of numbers to work with.
Our Take
Here's what $1 billion in blocked theft actually means: it's not a press release number. It's a retiree in Ohio who didn't wire her life savings to a scammer. It's a small business owner who didn't lose payroll to a fake vendor invoice. Billions flow to criminal syndicates every year, and the Recovery Asset Team is snatching the money back mid-flight. That's the government doing something worth doing.
Notice the 16 percent jump over the Biden years. That is not a coincidence and it is not luck. For four years, the FBI was busy treating parents at school board meetings as domestic terrorists while foreign scam compounds ran wild and American seniors got cleaned out. Priorities matter. When you point the bureau at actual criminals instead of political opponents, Americans stop getting robbed. Simple as that.
And notice the scale Patel is describing. Operation Blackout did not just freeze money — it blew up scam compounds, arrested hundreds, freed thousands of trafficked workers and, per the bureau, warned more than 10,000 Americans before they lost a dime. Then there's Operation Riptide out of Cleveland, taking down a Chinese phishing platform tied to nearly $1.9 billion in losses. That is a bureau on offense, not a bureau filing paperwork.
But patriots, don't pop the champagne yet. The ShinyHunters claim is a reminder that the same agency racking up wins is still a target — and that a hack of FBI recruiting data could put agents and their families in real danger. The FBI says it is investigating. Good. Congress should be watching that investigation closely, and so should we. A rebuilt cyber shop that can freeze a billion dollars in fraud but can't keep foreign hackers out of its own personnel files is a work in progress, not a finished product.
The lesson from the last four years stands: government works when it's aimed at the right enemies. Criminals, cartels, foreign syndicates — that's the mission. Not the moms and dads and J6 grandmas the old regime loved to hunt. Keep the pressure on, keep the receipts public, and make the next set of numbers even bigger.
