Interpol arrests Thai in $122.5M romance-scam laundering

A global police operation targeting online fraud and money laundering has led to the arrests of two individuals in Thailand accused of using cryptocurrency to launder more than $122.5 million from romance scams. The arrests, announced by Interpol on Thursday, July 9, 2026, were part of a broader four-month international crackdown that resulted in nearly 6,000 arrests and the seizure of hundreds of millions in illicit assets worldwide.

The Thai investigation centered on a 20-year-old suspect whose single cryptocurrency wallet processed the massive sum over a ten-month period. Authorities said the operation laundered proceeds from romance scams, a scheme where criminals build fake online relationships to defraud victims. Interpol stated that the suspects used cross-chain token swaps, moving funds between different blockchain networks, to obscure the origin and trail of the illicit money.

This case was a component of Operation First Light 2026, an Interpol-coordinated campaign that ran from mid-January through the end of April across 97 countries and territories. The operation targeted the criminal networks behind social engineering scams and the financial infrastructure used to...