- Police arrested five suspects in Europe for an alleged cryptocurrency fraud stealing over $118 million.
- Authorities searched properties and froze assets in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria.
- The fraud involved a fake crypto investment platform operating since 2018, targeting victims in 23 countries.
- A separate social engineering attack targeted a Venus Protocol user, resulting in the swift recovery of $13 million in stolen assets.
- U.S. reports show a sharp rise in losses to investment scams, with Americans losing $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024.
European law enforcement arrested five people in connection with an online crypto investment scam that defrauded more than 100 victims in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain of over $118 million. Officers carried out coordinated searches across Spain, Portugal, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria, freezing multiple bank accounts and financial assets tied to the group.
Eurojust said the main suspect ran a fraudulent investment platform promising high returns in cryptocurrencies. The accused allegedly laundered victim deposits through accounts in Lithuania. People who tried to withdraw their funds were told to pay extra fees, with the website vanishing afterward.
The fraud has operated since at least 2018 and impacted victims in 23 countries, according to Eurojust. Enforcement agencies from Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, and Spain participated in the investigation. “This fraud had been running since at least 2018, and covered 23 different countries, for instance, either as areas used to divert proceeds of the scam or as locations where victims were based,” Eurojust stated.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported American consumers lost a record $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024. Investment scams resulted in the highest losses, reaching $5.7 billion, up from $4.6 billion the year before. According to the FTC, “A majority (79%) of people who reported an investment-related scam lost money, with a median loss of over $9,000.” The FTC also noted that more than $3 billion was lost to scams that started online, compared to $1.9 billion from traditional contact methods.
A separate incident involved a user of Venus Protocol, a decentralized finance platform. On September 2, 2025, attackers gained access using a compromised Zoom client and convinced the victim to authorize a blockchain transaction. This gave the attackers control over the account and allowed them to transfer assets. Venus paused operations within 20 minutes, then recovered the stolen $13 million by forcibly liquidating the attacker’s wallet and freezing assets through a governance vote, as detailed by Chainalysis.
Authorities in Seoul also recently disrupted a cybercrime group that stole about $30 million from high-profile victims. Criminals used stolen information to impersonate agency officials and target victims’ families, preparing for further thefts.
For more information on these operations, visit Chainalysis.
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