Operation Atlantic the global alliance that exposes fraud in cryptomonedas and protects victims

Recently, a coordinated international joint operation from the United Kingdom brought the scale and sophistication of cryptomoneda fraud to the table again. Under the name of Operation Atlantic, the action brought together several agencies - with the National Crime Agency (NCA) as team leader - and allowed to identify more than 20,000 victims in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The preliminary results, reported by the NCA, include the freezing of over $12 million in funds suspected of being scams and the location of about $45 million in cryptomonedas related to international criminal schemes. The operation combined real-time intelligence exchange, technical skills and direct contact with victims, and involved agencies such as the U.S. Secret Service, Ontario Provincial Police, Ontario Securities Commission in addition to the City of London Police and the British financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority.

One of the most common techniques detected during the action was what is called "approval phishing": the offender convinces the victim to sign a transaction that, apparently inoculated, grants extensive permits on the portfolio. After this step, funds can be transferred or approved operations that empty assets without the user understanding what he has signed. This type of deception is often combined with investment scams - the well-known "Peg butchering" or romantic-financial scams in which the victim is persuaded to invest more and more - and with mobile pages and applications that simulate being legitimate platforms.

The operational value of these multilateral actions involves two aspects: on the one hand, the ability to track and block flows on centralized platforms or collaborative intermediaries; on the other, the opportunity to access private sector intelligence and data networks to identify victims and patterns before resources disappear. In NCA's words, the experience of Operation Atlantic is an example of what is achieved when authorities and companies work side by side.

These efforts do not live in isolation: the public-private collaboration model applied by Operation Atlantic is aligned with the new United Kingdom Government Fraud Strategy which is committed to connecting industry data with research capabilities to prevent and mitigate large-scale fraud. The authorities stress that the investigation does not end with a single intervention; the intelligence collected during the action week will continue to be analysed to support more victims and pursue related criminal activity.

In parallel, in the United States the fight against this type of fraud has also gained intensity. Since January 2024, the FBI, with support from the U.S. Secret Service in the so-called Operation Level Up, has identified more than 8,000 victims of investment fraud in cryptomonedas. The body notes that a large part of those affected - about 77% in that case - are not aware that they are being scammed until they have already lost funds, and that the estimated savings and losses are multi-million.

The overall picture is reflected in the Internet Crime Report (IC3) 2025 the FBI, which documents a marked increase in claims for investment fraud in cryptomonedas: more than 61,000 complaints related to losses of $7.228 billion, with significant annual increases. These numbers help to understand why security forces and the private sector have intensified joint operations and victim-outreach programmes.

Behind the figures are people who received a message, clicked a link or signed an authorization without knowing it. The technical structure of many scams is based on the mechanics of digital portfolios and the ease with which, with a single click, permissions can be delegated to malicious contracts. Social engineering also plays a key role: the scammers spend time building confidence, appearing legitimacy and creating urgency for the victim to act unverified.

From the point of view of prevention and response, there is a set of measures that are repeatedly useful: to understand what is signed in a transaction, to check domains and reputation of platforms, to distrust unsolicited offers and promises of very high returns, and to resort to official channels in the face of minimal suspicion of fraud. When there are signs of loss, it is crucial to act quickly: to contact the platform or exchange where the funds were moved, to collect evidence and to raise the complaint to the competent authorities to maximize the chances of recovery.

Operation Atlantic also demonstrates the technical constraints that the authorities encounter: traceability improves when funds go through regulated platforms or cooperative custodians, but it is complicated if mixers, non-cooperative crosschain bridges or services are used with intentional opacity. That is where international collaboration and partnerships with blockchain analysis companies are most valuable, because they allow to follow clues that would be undetectable.

In the end, the message behind this intervention is not just that of figures and freezes: it is evidence that the threat evolves and that the response - to be effective - needs to combine technology, regulations, international cooperation and awareness-raising campaigns. The authorities promise to keep track of the intelligence generated and to extend support to victims, while the private sector and regulators explore how to turn that knowledge into early prevention and controls that close the tracks that the scammers use today.

For those who use or plan to use cryptomonedas, the practical recommendation is simple and strong: to be informed, to be suspicious of shortcuts and to keep the technical and common sense defenses active. Good practices and speed of reaction can make the difference between recovering funds or becoming one more statistic in annual cybercrime reports.