More than $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds has been frozen after a joint US, UK and Canadian crackdown targeted crypto approval phishing scams that affected more than 20,000 people, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.
The operation also identified more than $45 million in cryptocurrency fraud tied to the same network of scams.
A Cross-Border Sweep Vs. Phishing
Operation Atlantic was run in March and brought together the NCA, the US Secret Service, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ontario Securities Commission.
The NCA said the effort focused on people who had already lost crypto, or were at risk of losing it, through approval phishing, a scheme that tricks users into handing over wallet access without meaning to.
That method has made scams harder to spot because the victim is often the one who authorizes the dangerous action. Instead of sending coins directly to a thief, users are pushed into signing a malicious approval that gives scammers permission to move assets out of the wallet later. Binance described that kind of fraud as one of the most damaging scams aimed at crypto users.
The NCA said the operation identified victims across the UK, the US and Canada, and one UK victim was thought to have lost more than £52,000.
Officials said the public-private effort helped law enforcement act while some funds were still traceable, with private firms helping identify victims in real time and trace suspicious transactions.
What Binance Said It Did
Binance said its Special Investigations team supported the operation on site in London, where staff helped with live account screening and scam intelligence. The company also said it identified scam websites that were still active during the operation and passed along information that could help with asset seizure efforts.
The exchange said no funds were frozen on Binance accounts. That point matters because it suggests the criminal proceeds were being held elsewhere when the sweep took place, even though Binance still played a role in tracing the wider scam network.
Image: Bill Hinton via Getty Images
Phishing: A Warning For Crypto Users
Officials from the NCA said the operation is now being followed by further analysis of the intelligence gathered during the crackdown. The agency also told victims to watch out for recovery scams, warning that criminals often return under a new name and promise to get stolen crypto back for a fee.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
