Security | April 10, 2026
Operation Atlantic Freezes $12 Million in Approval-Phishing Sweep
A London operation led by the U.K. National Crime Agency identified more than 20,000 victims or at-risk targets and traced over $45 million tied to wallet-drain fraud.
Operation Atlantic froze more than $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds and identified more than 20,000 victims or likely targets across the U.K., Canada, and the United States, according to the U.K. National Crime Agency. The weeklong effort, held in London last month, focused on approval-phishing scams that trick wallet users into signing permissions criminals can later use to empty their accounts.
The NCA said the operation was co-hosted with the U.S. Secret Service, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Ontario Securities Commission, with other agencies and private-sector tracing partners working from the same room. So far the group has identified more than $45 million tied to cryptocurrency fraud schemes. Elliptic, one of the analytics firms involved, said tracing teams mapped stolen funds to offramps and consolidation points while separate legal teams worked with virtual asset service providers on subpoenas, information requests, and freezing orders. That means the $12 million was likely stopped at custodial services and other reachable intermediaries rather than pulled back through some onchain reversal, though the public releases do not name the specific platforms that held the funds.