Payward, the parent company of Kraken, the cryptocurrency exchange, played a central role in a coordinated international law enforcement operation that identified more than $45 million in suspected criminal proceeds.
Operation Atlantic, held in March, was co-hosted by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), the US Secret Service, Ontario Provincial Police and Ontario Securities Commission.
The week-long campaign focused on approval phishing, a technique where victims are tricked into unknowingly granting criminals full access to their cryptocurrency wallets.
Payward said it supported the operation by identifying affected accounts, notifying clients, responding to data requests and embedding staff at the NCA's London headquarters.
Investigators identified more than 20,000 cryptocurrency wallet addresses linked to fraud victims across more than 30 countries.
Authorities froze $12 million in fraudulent losses that had been transferred out of victims' wallets, with the goal of returning those funds.
A further $33 million believed to be linked to investment fraud schemes was identified and will be investigated further.
The operation also mapped 120 fraudulent web domains designed to impersonate legitimate crypto trading platforms and decentralised finance protocols.
Other private sector partners included Coinbase, Binance, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis and stablecoin issuer Tether.
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Approval phishing has become the technical backbone of so-called pig butchering scams, long-running investment frauds where criminals groom victims on dating apps and social media before directing them to fake trading platforms.
Payward urged users to review wallet activity, avoid unknown links and report suspicious incidents to local law enforcement.
The recap
- Payward supported Operation Atlantic to disrupt cryptocurrency fraud.
- Operation identified more than $45 million in suspected proceeds.
- Payward notified clients and deployed staff to NCA London.
