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The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office has knocked a multinational cryptocurrency scam operation offline, disrupting 241 fraudulent domains and more than 100 cloud servers that supported fake investment platforms, according to Bitcoinmagazine. Working with the FBI, investigators carried out the operation across three time zones in a matter of hours, and the office described it as among the largest cyber takedowns ever conducted by a local prosecutor.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez tied the result to the office’s Virtual Currency Unit (VCU), writing that the unit “identified the fraud, tracked the stolen cryptocurrency, broke new ground by uncovering the infrastructure behind the operation, and worked with the FBI to dismantle it.”
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Key facts
- 241 fraudulent domains and more than 100 cloud servers were seized or disrupted, according to Bitcoinmagazine; Cryptobriefing put the server figure at 112.
- The infrastructure was hosted by Eastern European and American companies and held victim data, site content and operating software.
- The scheme targeted Russian-speaking victims through Russian-language investment ads on Facebook, with a Russian-speaking “advisor” calling them and walking them through accounts on fake crypto platforms.
- Prosecutors recovered about $300,000 over the three-year investigation and say they are working to claw back more.
- No arrests were announced and no suspects were named, Cryptobriefing reported.
How victims were drawn in
According to Bitcoinmagazine, victims followed Russian-language investment ads on Facebook, were phoned by a Russian-speaking “advisor,” and were guided through opening an account and buying digital assets on a platform built to look legitimate. Weeks or months later, when they tried to withdraw, they were locked out or hit with bogus “fees” and “taxes,” and some lost their life savings. Then the scammers returned, posing as recovery services and promising to retrieve the stolen money.
Cryptobriefing reported that investigators confirmed losses in the millions of dollars within Brooklyn’s Russian-speaking community alone, with losses reaching tens of millions of dollars across the broader U.S. population over the roughly three-year span of the investigation.
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What changed compared with earlier rounds
The VCU had already taken down 400 scam domains, per Bitcoinmagazine, but new ones kept appearing. This operation went after the servers behind the sites instead. As Cryptobriefing put it, domains are the bait and servers are the hooks; removing both is meant to cut off the supply of new victims while also blocking the scammers from reaching past victims.
The approach extends earlier VCU work. Cryptobriefing reported that a prior operation from 2024 to 2025 targeted around 70 fraudulent domains and was linked to approximately $5 million in losses nationwide, and that an earlier strategy involved confiscating scammers’ email servers to gather victim contact lists so potential victims could be warned directly.
Why it matters
For ordinary crypto investors, the practical lesson is about the delivery method: this scheme ran on social media ads, convincing websites and persuasive phone calls rather than exotic hacking. Anyone approached by an unsolicited “advisor” urging them to move crypto should treat that as a warning sign, especially when the opportunity first surfaced in a Facebook ad. An infrastructure takedown disrupts an operation but does not necessarily end one, and with no arrests or named suspects, those behind the network could try to rebuild under new domains.
What to watch
Prosecutors have said they are working to recover more of the stolen funds beyond the roughly $300,000 returned so far, and any arrests or named suspects would mark the next phase of the case. The reports do not give a timeline for further enforcement.
Sources: Bitcoin Magazine, Cryptobriefing
