Operation Atlantic froze funds
An international law‑enforcement action called Operation Atlantic disrupted more than $45 million in cryptocurrency fraud and froze about $12 million in stolen funds, highlighting that coordinated policing is now catching sizable crypto scams (newswire release); the FBI still lists crypto fraud as the top reported scam category in its internet‑crime data (local reporting). (newswire.ca / fox13news.com)
A week-long police operation across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada just did something crypto victims rarely see: it found stolen money before it vanished for good. Investigators said they identified more than $45 million tied to fraud schemes and froze more than $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds. (secretservice.gov) The operation was called Operation Atlantic, and it started on March 27 under a partnership that included the United States Secret Service, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency, and Canadian authorities. Officials said the target was a scam known as “approval phishing,” which tricks people into handing over control of their own crypto wallets. (newswire.ca) Approval phishing works like signing a blank check instead of typing in a password. A fake pop-up made to look like a trusted crypto app asks the victim to “approve” access, and that approval can let the scammer drain tokens later without another warning. (newswire.ca) Operation Atlantic was not built around one giant hack. Authorities said they identified more than 20,000 victims across the three countries, which shows the scam spread through thousands of smaller wallet compromises instead of a single headline-grabbing breach. (prnewswire.com) The mechanics look modern, but the pitch is old: scammers tie the fake approval request to a supposed investment opportunity. The victim thinks they are connecting a wallet to buy something legitimate, while the criminal is really getting permission to move assets out. (newswire.ca) The reason police could move this fast is that crypto leaves a public trail even when the thief hides behind a screen name. The United States Secret Service said the operation combined victim outreach with blockchain tracing, and the Ontario Securities Commission published an example of a seized scam domain that now shows a law-enforcement notice instead of the fraud site. (secretservice.gov) (osc.ca) Private crypto companies were in the room too. Binance said its investigations team worked on-site at the National Crime Agency’s London headquarters during the operation, screening accounts and sharing scam intelligence while law enforcement tried to stop funds from moving again. (prnewswire.com) This came out the same week the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its 2025 Internet Crime Report. That report said Americans reported $20.87 billion in total cyber-enabled losses in 2025, and cryptocurrency-related losses alone reached about $11.36 billion. (ic3.gov) Inside that report, investment fraud was again the biggest money-loss category, and crypto investment fraud accounted for about $7.2 billion of the damage. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also said it received 181,565 complaints tied to cryptocurrency in 2025. (ic3.gov) (fbi.gov) So the story here is not that crypto scams are getting smaller. It is that police agencies in three countries, working with exchanges and blockchain investigators, managed to freeze part of the money trail before it disappeared into hundreds of wallets and offshore platforms. (secretservice.gov) (prnewswire.com)
