Brooklyn DA Seizes 241 Domains and 112 Servers in Crypto Scam Bust

Published October 14, 2026, 17:20 UTC. Based on the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office press release dated October 14, 2026, and Bloomberg Law reporting dated October 14, 2026.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, that his office's Virtual Currency Unit, working with the FBI, dismantled the online infrastructure of a multinational cryptocurrency investment scam that targeted Russian-speaking residents of the United States. The office described the operation as one of the largest cyber enforcement actions ever taken by a local prosecutor's office.

The action seized and disrupted 241 scam cryptocurrency investment domains and a cluster of more than 100 cloud-based servers, the announcement said, cutting the scammers off from the victim lists, the operational software and the data that populated their fake trading sites. Investigators executed numerous search warrants and took other enforcement actions across three time zones over several hours last week, according to the release.

The servers in Ukraine and Eastern Europe

The criminals ran the operation through cyber infrastructure and IP addresses in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, the announcement said. The 241 domains were the visible front, but the servers were the engine, and taking them away means the fraudsters can no longer spin up replacement websites quickly or re-contact people they already scammed, according to the DA's office. The office thanked the FBI, Shadow Server, Coeus and UltaHost for their assistance in the investigation.

A Russian-language Facebook ad to a fake investment platform

The three-year investigation found a consistent playbook. Victims responded to a Facebook advertisement in Russian promoting an investment opportunity, then received a follow-up call from an "investment advisor" who also spoke Russian, the release said. The advisor coached the victim into opening an account on a cryptocurrency investment platform website and, with the advisor's help, the victim bought cryptocurrency and transferred it to addresses linked to the platform. After weeks or months of supposed investing, the victim tried to withdraw and was either locked out of the account or told to pay additional fees and taxes, the release said.

Tens of millions gone, $300,000 clawed back so far

The scheme stole an estimated tens of millions of dollars, with some victims losing their entire life savings, the DA's office said. So far, the office has seized about $300,000 in stolen funds and is working to recover more. The release also said the criminals ran a second scam on top of the first: weeks after the initial theft, they contacted victims again with promises of recovering the stolen assets, a classic recovery scam.

The 400 domains that came back

Last week's operation was an escalation. Before it, the Virtual Currency Unit had already seized or disrupted 400 domains tied to cryptocurrency investment fraud, the release said, but new scam sites appeared almost as fast as they were taken down. By moving against the servers behind the domains, investigators aimed to break the cycle rather than keep playing catch-up with individual websites.

What Gonzalez and the FBI said

District Attorney Gonzalez said the operation shows that scammers operating halfway around the world are not beyond his office's reach, and credited the Virtual Currency Unit with identifying the fraud, tracking the stolen cryptocurrency and uncovering the operation's infrastructure before working with the FBI to take it down. James C. Barnacle, the FBI's assistant director in charge in New York, called the case an example of what partnerships across state, local and international law enforcement can accomplish, the release said. No arrests were made in the operation, Bloomberg Law reported.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Brooklyn District Attorney's Office press release, October 14, 2026, primary source for the announcement date, the 241 domains and 112 servers seized, the Virtual Currency Unit's role, the FBI partnership, the three-year investigation timeline, the Ukraine and Eastern European infrastructure, the Russian-language Facebook ad and investment advisor playbook, the tens of millions stolen, the $300,000 recovered, the recovery scam, the 400 previously seized domains, and the statements from District Attorney Eric Gonzalez and FBI Assistant Director James C. Barnacle
• Bloomberg Law, October 14, 2026, secondary source for the operation being conducted last week, the years-long effort framing, and the fact that no arrests were made