FBI: Scams, Violent Extremism, and Drug Trafficking Pose Most Significant Global Threats
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed the three most significant threats facing the world today: organised cyber scams, nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), and transnational narcotics trafficking.
“While these threats target American citizens every day, their deadly impact across Southeast Asia is also sharply increasing,” FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey said during a virtual press conference from Bangkok, monitored from Jakarta on Wednesday (10/6).
Bailey said that organised cyber scams have massively stolen people’s hard-earned savings. Meanwhile, online extremists, such as NVE perpetrators, seek to endanger children by exploiting their vulnerabilities. Drug trafficking cartels, on the other hand, have poisoned people for the profit of their groups.
“These criminals do not care which country their victims are in. They target Americans and Southeast Asians without exception. They profit from suffering regardless of national identity,” he said.
The international community, according to him, requires assistance, and the FBI together with foreign partners is leading efforts to tackle these crimes.
“We are pushing back directly where these criminal organisations operate, because the best way to protect the American people is to confront these threats at their source,” Bailey said. The best effort to defeat these transnational threats is through tested and trusted transnational partnerships, he added.
Regarding organised cyber scams, Bailey said that over the past few days, he has met with the Royal Thai Police and overseen FBI work through that partnership to dismantle related criminal enterprises. These enterprises, he said, are highly organised criminal syndicates running industrial-scale fraud operations worldwide.
“They represent true crime. They do not differentiate victims by nationality or belief. They steal billions of dollars, exploit cryptocurrency, and ruthlessly and inhumanely traffic human beings,” he stated. Such fraud, in his view, constitutes organised crime on a scale the world has never seen before, and many of these operations are controlled by sophisticated criminal organisations operating throughout Southeast Asia.
Then, regarding nihilistic violent extremism, Bailey assessed this crime as the fastest-growing threat group seeking to target and ultimately kill young people. He stressed that there are no territorial boundaries for NVE crimes because related organisations thrive in the digital space. They exploit isolation, encourage victims to self-harm, and glorify acts of violence. In some cases, NVE perpetrators brainwash victims into committing acts of self-harm or mass casualty attacks.
“A teenager sitting in front of a computer on the other side of the world can consume the same violent content as someone in an American classroom. These groups represent the evolution of terrorism. That is why international cooperation is so critical,” Bailey said. Through a partnership with the Philippine government, the FBI-led Joint Anti-Terrorism Group conducted 14 operations and successfully rescued 21 minors who had been mobilised to commit acts of violence.
Meanwhile, concerning transnational narcotics trafficking, particularly fentanyl, Bailey said that fentanyl is rapidly becoming the deadliest narcotic in history. “This narcotic is killing Americans at a horrifying rate and does not stop at our borders,” Bailey said. In the last year alone, the FBI seized 2,250 kilograms of fentanyl, an amount sufficient to kill more than 178 million Americans, or over half the US population.
To that end, the FBI is working with partners across Asia to identify and destroy the precursor chemicals fueling this crisis before they fall into the hands of cartels. “We support sanctions, enforcement actions, intelligence sharing, and we are targeting the criminal networks that profit from the loss of life,” he said.
“To those who traffic fentanyl, I would say that the FBI, through new anti-terrorism authorities granted by President Trump and his administration, will work with law enforcement partners around the world to bring the full force of our combined legal authorities to neutralise you,” Bailey concluded.