Brooklyn and FBI Disrupt Eastern European-Linked Crypto Investment Fraud Infrastructure

Operation targets servers and websites used to dupe Russian‑speaking victims

Brooklyn prosecutors and federal agents recently disabled a network of online infrastructure tied to a sprawling crypto investment scheme that allegedly extorted tens of millions of dollars from Russian‑speaking residents in the United States. Over the course of the takedown, authorities seized or disrupted 241 websites and 112 servers connected to the fraud, marking the latest phase of a multi‑year investigation.

The probe had tracked a fraud ring that relied on internet resources and IP addresses located in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries. While no arrests were announced at the time of the operation, investigators focused on dismantling the digital backbone that allowed the scam to quickly reappear after earlier enforcement actions.

How the scam operated and harmed victims

Scammers lured targets with Russian‑language Facebook advertisements promising lucrative investment opportunities. After initial contact, callers posing as legitimate advisers coached victims to purchase cryptocurrency and transfer the funds to fake trading platforms. When victims attempted to withdraw their money, the platforms either froze accounts or demanded additional payments—allegedly for taxes, fees, or other bogus charges.

Victims were often contacted again weeks later with offers to help recover the stolen funds, creating an additional layer of exploitation. Recovered investigative data showed these follow‑up contacts were part of the same scheme, aimed at extracting more money from people who had already been defrauded.

Shift in enforcement focus: from domains to servers

Brooklyn’s Virtual Currency Unit had previously taken down roughly 400 domains tied to crypto investment fraud, but the operators repeatedly launched replacement sites. To prevent rapid recurrence, investigators this time targeted the underlying servers—hosted by companies in Eastern Europe and the United States—that stored victim information and ran the fraudulent software.

By disrupting the servers, authorities sought to interrupt the operators’ ability to spin up new domains and platforms quickly. This approach aims to create a more durable disruption to the criminal infrastructure than seizing domains alone.

Scale and impact of crypto fraud nationally

The takedown comes amid a broader surge in crypto investment scams. According to the FBI’s annual report, crypto investment schemes represented about 84% of the $8.65 billion in investment‑fraud losses reported in 2025. Across all internet‑based crime categories, losses tied to crypto amounted to roughly $11.37 billion—about 54% of the FBI’s $20.88 billion total for internet‑related fraud.

In Brooklyn, authorities have recovered about $300,000 so far and continue efforts to trace and retrieve additional funds. Prosecutors noted that some victims lost their life savings to the scheme, underscoring the severe financial and personal toll of this type of fraud.