🔍 241 websites shut down, 112 servers seized. The announcement mentioned not a single arrest
On October 14, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office announced an operation carried out last week. Acting simultaneously across three time zones, authorities shut down 241 cryptocurrency investment scam domains and seized 112 servers within a few hours. The prosecutors said it was one of the largest cyber enforcement actions ever conducted by a local prosecutor’s office in the United States.
Taking down websites is nothing new. The same Virtual Currency Unit (VCU) had already shut down 400 domains. New ones quickly popped up after each takedown. A game of whack-a-mole.
This time, they went after the backend. The 112 servers were hosted by companies in Eastern Europe and the United States, and contained victims’ information and the scammers’ entire suite of operating software. Once the servers were taken, the scammers couldn’t set up new sites or contact their existing victims. As the deputy district attorney who led the operation put it: “We shut down the backend.”
The scam itself wasn’t technically sophisticated. Victims saw Russian-language investment ads on Facebook, then got a call from a Russian-speaking “investment adviser,” who walked them through registering on a platform, buying cryptocurrency, and transferring it to an address provided by the platform. After investing for a few months, they tried to withdraw their money—only to find their accounts locked, or to be told they had to pay additional taxes and fees first.
The second blow was more insidious. A few weeks after the initial scam, the same people came back, claiming they could help recover the victims’ cryptocurrency.
The victims were concentrated in Brooklyn, which has a large Russian-speaking population. Prosecutors estimated losses in the tens of millions of dollars; some victims lost their life savings. About $300,000 in stolen funds was recovered.
In the context of the entire country, this is just a small slice. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 report recorded 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints, up 21% year over year. Losses totaled $11.366 billion, up 22%. The average loss was $62,604, and 18,589 people lost more than $100,000 in a single incident. Looking just at cryptocurrency investment fraud, there were 61,559 complaints and $7.228 billion in losses, making it the single costliest category of scam in the United States in 2025. Among those who reported this type of fraud, 13,685 were aged 60 or older, with losses totaling $2.764 billion. These figures are still rising.
More important than the numbers themselves is where law enforcement scored its win. The blockchain wasn’t breached. What authorities went after were domains, servers, and hosting services—all centralized points in the operation. The addresses still work. The money still moves.
As I write this, BTC is quoted between $81,557 and $81,669 across four sources, down about 2% over 24 hours. ETH is at $2,416 to $2,420, down about 3.4%.
With the backend shut down, the money is still sitting at the original addresses. How much is recovered, and whether anyone is actually prosecuted, are the two figures to watch next.
$BTC $ETH
#中本聪国际社区Baoluo币商资本 #Bitcoin #CryptoScam
On October 14, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office announced an operation carried out last week. Acting simultaneously across three time zones, authorities shut down 241 cryptocurrency investment scam domains and seized 112 servers within a few hours. The prosecutors said it was one of the largest cyber enforcement actions ever conducted by a local prosecutor’s office in the United States.
Taking down websites is nothing new. The same Virtual Currency Unit (VCU) had already shut down 400 domains. New ones quickly popped up after each takedown. A game of whack-a-mole.
This time, they went after the backend. The 112 servers were hosted by companies in Eastern Europe and the United States, and contained victims’ information and the scammers’ entire suite of operating software. Once the servers were taken, the scammers couldn’t set up new sites or contact their existing victims. As the deputy district attorney who led the operation put it: “We shut down the backend.”
The scam itself wasn’t technically sophisticated. Victims saw Russian-language investment ads on Facebook, then got a call from a Russian-speaking “investment adviser,” who walked them through registering on a platform, buying cryptocurrency, and transferring it to an address provided by the platform. After investing for a few months, they tried to withdraw their money—only to find their accounts locked, or to be told they had to pay additional taxes and fees first.
The second blow was more insidious. A few weeks after the initial scam, the same people came back, claiming they could help recover the victims’ cryptocurrency.
The victims were concentrated in Brooklyn, which has a large Russian-speaking population. Prosecutors estimated losses in the tens of millions of dollars; some victims lost their life savings. About $300,000 in stolen funds was recovered.
In the context of the entire country, this is just a small slice. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) 2025 report recorded 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints, up 21% year over year. Losses totaled $11.366 billion, up 22%. The average loss was $62,604, and 18,589 people lost more than $100,000 in a single incident. Looking just at cryptocurrency investment fraud, there were 61,559 complaints and $7.228 billion in losses, making it the single costliest category of scam in the United States in 2025. Among those who reported this type of fraud, 13,685 were aged 60 or older, with losses totaling $2.764 billion. These figures are still rising.
More important than the numbers themselves is where law enforcement scored its win. The blockchain wasn’t breached. What authorities went after were domains, servers, and hosting services—all centralized points in the operation. The addresses still work. The money still moves.
As I write this, BTC is quoted between $81,557 and $81,669 across four sources, down about 2% over 24 hours. ETH is at $2,416 to $2,420, down about 3.4%.
With the backend shut down, the money is still sitting at the original addresses. How much is recovered, and whether anyone is actually prosecuted, are the two figures to watch next.
$BTC $ETH
#中本聪国际社区Baoluo币商资本 #Bitcoin #CryptoScam