241 scam sites and 112 servers pulled offline as Brooklyn prosecutors and the FBI gut a crypto fraud ring that hunted Russian speakers through Facebook ads

Brooklyn prosecutors have taken apart the back end of a crypto investment scam aimed at Russian speakers. District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said on Wednesday that his office's Virtual Currency Unit, working with the FBI's New York office, executed search warrants across three time zones over several hours and seized or disrupted 241 scam web domains and 112 servers hosted by companies in Eastern Europe and the United States. crypto.news reported that the action capped a three-year investigation and that no arrests were made.

The scheme followed a pattern. Victims saw a Russian-language ad on Facebook offering investments, got a call from a Russian-speaking "investment advisor," opened an account on a crypto investment website and sent coins to addresses tied to it. Weeks or months later, anyone trying to withdraw was locked out or told to pay extra fees and taxes. Then the scammers came back a second time, posing as a recovery service. Some victims lost their life savings, the office said; losses ran to tens of millions of dollars, and about $300,000 has been seized so far.

Prosecutors said domain seizures on their own had not stopped the fraud, so they went for the servers that held the site data, victim information and operating software. The unit had already seized or disrupted about 400 scam domains in earlier actions. "When scammers halfway around the world target Brooklyn residents, they should know they are not beyond our reach," Gonzalez said. Shadow Server, Coeus and UltaHost assisted. For scale, FBI figures cited by crypto.news put Americans' reported crypto fraud losses at $11.4 billion in 2025, up 22% on the year before.