The United States Secret Service, the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency, and Canadian law enforcement authorities have formally announced a joint international initiative named 'Operation Atlantic' aimed at disrupting cryptocurrency fraud, raising public awareness of scams, and recovering stolen funds.
In a coordinated notice, the agencies—including Canada's Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC)—stated the operation focuses on identifying individuals at risk of losing, or who have already lost, cryptocurrency through 'approval phishing' schemes. "Approval phishing and investment scams cost victims millions in financial loss each year," said Brent Daniels, deputy assistant director for the US Secret Service's Office of Field Operations. The goal is to identify and disrupt these scams in near real-time.
Operation Atlantic builds upon the OSC's existing 'Project Atlas', which was launched in 2024 by the OPP in partnership with the US Secret Service to target crypto fraud networks. The expanded initiative will also involve the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the City of London Police, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The announcement clarifies and confirms earlier unverified reports regarding 'Operation Atlantic'. While a previous claim lacked official sourcing, this multi-agency release validates the operation's existence and international scope. The operation targets a specific and costly threat: approval phishing, where scammers trick users into signing malicious blockchain transactions that grant access to drain their wallets of specific tokens.
Contextualizing the threat, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which launched its own 'Operation Spincaster' in 2024, reported that approval phishing scams resulted in approximately $2.7 billion in stolen crypto between May 2021 and July 2024. While recent data from intelligence platform Nominis shows overall crypto scam and exploit losses fell to $49 million in February 2026 from $385 million in January, phishing attacks specifically saw a sharp increase during the same period.
