Crypto? Huh. Good gawd y'all, what is it good for? $45M in this case
Cops bust latest scam, return $12m to bilked victims
US, UK, and Canadian law enforcement Thursday said that they disrupted a $45 million global cryptocurrency scam, freezing $12 million in stolen funds and identifying more than 20,000 cryptocurrency wallet addresses linked to fraud victims across 30 countries.
The week-long effort, dubbed Operation Atlantic, also identified an additional $33 million believed to be linked to investment fraud schemes, and will further investigate these funds.
Operation Atlantic is a joint initiative led by the US Secret Service, the UK National Crime Agency, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Ontario Securities Commission, working with private‑sector partners, to identify and contact potential victims and help them recover stolen funds.
In these so-called "pig butchering" scams, victims unknowingly give criminals full access to their cryptocurrency accounts, typically after receiving a fake notification that appears to come from a legitimate app or service, asking the user to approve access. After the victim approves the request, the scammers drain people's wallets.
Over the course of the operation, international cops identified and directly contacted more than 3,000 victims, and returned $12 million back to their wallets.
This effort demonstrates the "need for international collaboration to stop cryptocurrency fraud," Brent Daniels, assistant director for the US Secret Service's Office of Field Operations, said in a statement. "Through this operation, investigators prevented millions of dollars in fraud losses and disrupted millions more in fraudulent transactions."
Cybercrime losses to US businesses and consumers hit a record $20.87 billion in 2025, according to an FBI report published this week
The feds received 181,565 cryptocurrency complaints last year - a 21 percent increase from the year prior - and said people suffered $1.366 billion in losses from these types of scams, which is up 22 percent from 2024. ®