FBI and Brooklyn Prosecutors Seize 112 Servers and Shut Down 241 Websites in Crypto Scam Crackdown
Key Takeaways
- •Brooklyn prosecutors and the FBI shut down 241 websites and seized 112 servers in Eastern Europe and the United States as part of a crackdown on a crypto investment scam network.
- •The scheme allegedly stole tens of millions of dollars from American victims, most of whom were Russian speakers.
- •No arrests were made, as the operation focused on dismantling the network's online infrastructure rather than detaining individuals.
- •Seizing the servers halted the scammers' ability to create new websites and contact victims, including through secondary recovery scams that charge upfront fees for funds that cannot be retrieved.
- •FBI figures show Americans reported $11.4 billion in cryptocurrency fraud losses in 2025, a 22% increase from the previous year.
Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), have disrupted an Eastern European cryptocurrency scam network accused of stealing tens of millions of dollars from Americans, most of them Russian speakers.
The operation, carried out last week and announced on Wednesday, resulted in the shutdown of 241 websites and the seizure of 112 servers hosted by companies in Eastern Europe and the United States, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. No arrests were made; the action targeted the network's online infrastructure rather than individuals.
“These criminals stole many millions of dollars from Russian-speaking victims through an elaborate investment scheme, then tried to exploit them again with false promises to recover their money,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. He credited the office's Virtual Currency Unit and the FBI with uncovering the network's infrastructure.
Recovery scams, in which fraudsters pose as asset-recovery specialists and charge upfront fees to pursue funds that cannot actually be retrieved, are a well-documented second wave of investment fraud that U.S. authorities, including the FBI, have repeatedly warned about. Those warnings are aimed at people who have already lost money and may be searching for a way to get it back.
Seizing the servers was central to the takedown, because it cut off the scammers' ability to create new websites and contact victims. “We disabled the back end of the operation,” Assistant District Attorney Alona Katz, who led the investigation, said, according to Bloomberg.
The action comes amid a broader rise in cryptocurrency-related fraud across the United States. Americans reported $11.4 billion in crypto fraud losses in 2025, a 22% increase from the previous year, according to FBI figures cited by Bloomberg. Against that backdrop, the Brooklyn case offers a measure of how far a single scheme can reach: hundreds of websites running on servers spread across two regions.
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