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Operation Atlantic Freezes $12 Million and Identifies 20,000+ Crypto-Fraud Victims

The cross-border sprint shows how real-time work with crypto firms can stop wallet-draining approvals before funds vanish.

Overview

  • The agencies said Thursday the week-long March sweep, hosted at the UK National Crime Agency in London, froze more than $12 million tied to investment scams.
  • Investigators targeted approval phishing, where a fake pop-up tricks a user into signing a permission that lets thieves pull tokens from the wallet with no way to reverse the transfer.
  • Authorities mapped more than 20,000 victim wallet addresses across 30+ countries and disrupted over 120 scam websites used to capture approvals.
  • Officials also flagged at least $33 million for further investigation, with partners reporting about $45 million in related stolen funds traced across linked networks.
  • Private firms including Coinbase, Chainalysis, Kraken, Tether and Binance provided live screening and intelligence, and police said they contacted over 3,000 victims as recovery and new investigations continue.