“Operation Atlantic”: American and British team with companies to track and freeze millions of stolen cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase and Binance, along with government agencies such as the US Secret Service and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), have reported $45 million in cryptocurrency funds stolen as part of fraud schemes, the parties announced on Thursday.

In the investigation, more than 20,000 victims of phishing scams were identified, and $12 million worth of funds were frozen in hopes of returning the money to the victims.

“To defeat consent phishing at scale, our global intelligence team joined several international law enforcement agencies and other partners in a focused operational sprint held at the National Crime Agency’s headquarters in London,” Coinbase wrote.

“The goal was clear: identify victims, trace the stolen funds, and disable the infrastructure that makes consent phishing possible – as quickly as possible,” she added.

investigation race, Under the name “Operation Atlantic” It was first unveiled last month and hosted by the NCA at its London headquarters. In a week of concentrated work there, the agencies were disrupted “Multiple fraud networks” We will continue to analyze the intelligence gathered moving forward. Other cryptocurrency companies, such as on-chain security firm Chainalogy, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, and stablecoin issuer Tether, have been listed as partners.

“Operation Atlantic is a powerful example of what is possible when international agencies and private industry work side by side,” Miles Brunfield, deputy director of investigations at the National Crime Agency, said in a statement. “This extensive action has protected thousands of victims in the UK and abroad, stopped criminals in their tracks and helped save others from losing their money.”

The enforcement campaign focused on cryptocurrency investors who may have been affected by consent phishing, when malicious actors attempt to access funds via fake pop-up notifications or alerts that unsuspecting victims believe come from trusted parties.

More than 120 web domains used for the schemes were identified during the week, according to the Secret Service.

“In the case of traditional financial crimes, this type of cross-border coordination between multiple agencies could take months,” Coinbase wrote in its summary this week. “With blockchain technology, we went from definition to action in one one-week sprint.”

The engagement report comes just over a week after the alleged escape of North Korean hackers About $285 million by exploiting the Solana protocol, Drift. This exploit represents only a small portion of the money lost to cryptocurrency scams last year, a recent FBI report notes. More than $11.4 billion has been lost to cryptocurrency scams In 2025 alone.