United States of America: Justice Department seized web3adspanels domain and database

On 22 December 2025, the Justice Department announced the seizure of the web domain web3adspanels and its associated database used to facilitate a bank account takeover fraud scheme. The criminal group delivered fraudulent advertisements through search engines, including Google and Bing, which redirected victims to fake banking websites to harvest their login credentials via malicious software. These stolen credentials allowed criminals to access legitimate bank accounts and drain funds, resulting in actual losses of approximately USD 14'600'000 and attempted losses of USD 28'000'000 across at least 19 identified victims. The investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) determined that the seized domain hosted a backend server containing the credentials of thousands of victims. The operation was supported by the Estonian Office of the Prosecutor General and the Georgian Central Criminal Police Department, who assisted in preserving data from servers hosting the phishing pages.