Overview
- Authorities are running a week-long operation with blockchain forensics teams, victim-contact units in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and a seize-and-recover function working alongside major exchanges and VASPs.
- The initiative is co-hosted by the U.S. Secret Service with the U.K. National Crime Agency, Ontario Provincial Police and Ontario Securities Commission, with participation from the RCMP, City of London Police, the FCA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.
- Officials say the goal is near real-time disruption of scams by warning at-risk users, helping revoke malicious wallet permissions, and freezing or recovering funds as cases unfold.
- Operation Atlantic adapts Canada’s 2024 Project Atlas model, which identified over 2,000 compromised wallets across 14 countries, disrupted roughly $70 million in potential fraud and froze about $24 million.
- The crackdown responds to rising fraud losses, with Chainalysis estimating at least $14 billion in onchain scam revenue in 2025 and noting increased use of social engineering, AI-generated content and phishing-as-a-service.