Law enforcement agencies in the UK, US and Canada have teamed up in an ambitious initiative which has already identified more than 20,000 victims of so-called “approval phishing.”
Approval phishing is a technique whereby victims are tricked into providing full access to their cryptocurrency wallets. Often, they are persuaded to click on a fake alert or popup spoofed to appear as if sent from a trusted app or service.
Operation Atlantic ran for a week last month and resulted in the freezing of $12m thought to have been stolen via these scams.
The operation, led by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) with support from the US Secret Service, Ontario Provincial Police and Ontario Securities Commission, also identified a further $33m stolen in crypto fraud.
Read more on approval phishing: Approval Phishing Scams Drain $1bn of Cryptocurrency from Victims.
The NCA claimed multiple fraud networks were “disrupted” in the operation, which also featured private sector support from Binance, Coinbase, Tether and blockchain analytics firms Elliptics, TRM Labs and Chainalysis.
NCA deputy director of investigations, Miles Bonfield, said the operation showed what was possible when international agencies team up with the private sector.
“This intensive action has led to the safeguarding of thousands of victims in the UK and overseas, stopped criminals in their tracks and helped save others from losing their funds,” he claimed. “We know that fraudsters operate globally and, together with our international partners, so will the NCA to target them wherever they are based.”
The partners identified over 20,000 crypto wallets linked to fraud victims across more than 30 countries, and contacted 3000 victims during this phase of the operation.
They also identified and disrupted over 120 web domains used by scammers to conduct fraudulent schemes.
Crypto Fraud Remains the Biggest Money Earner
Cryptocurrency-related crime cost victims over $11.3bn last year, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report 2025.
Cryptocurrency investment fraud accounted for $7.2bn in losses – the vast majority of the $8.6bn overall lost to investment scams in the period. That remains the highest-earning crime category for cybercriminals.
Phishing accounted for an estimated $215m.
According to a Chainalysis report, approval phishing scams made scammers at least $1bn between May 2021 and December 2023.
The report claimed that these scams often involve romance fraud techniques to build trust with with victims before convincing them to sign approval transactions.
“Operation Atlantic demonstrated the importance and need for international collaboration to stop cryptocurrency fraud,” said Brent Daniels, assistant director for the US Secret Service’s Office of Field Operations. “Through this operation, investigators prevented millions of dollars in fraud losses and disrupted millions more in fraudulent transactions denying criminals the ability to prey on innocent victims.”