U.S. DoJ Seizes Fraud Domain Behind $14.6 Million Bank Account Takeover Scheme

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday announced the seizure of web3adspanels[.]org, a domain and database used to support a bank account takeover fraud scheme that harvested login credentials from thousands of victims. According to the U.S. and Estonia-led operation, the site hosted a backend panel that directed users to fake bank websites and prompted credential input, which were later used to access legitimate accounts.

The scheme has been linked to 19 identified victims across the United States, including two companies in the Northern District of Georgia, with attempted losses of about $28 million and actual losses of $14.6 million, according to the DoJ. The domain also stored stolen credentials and hosted a backend server to facilitate takeover fraud as recently as last month.

The FBI and IC3 data cited by the DoJ show more than 5,100 complaints related to bank account takeover fraud since January 2025, with losses exceeding $262 million. The DoJ noted that the fraudulent ads appeared in search engine results, including those on Google and Bing, functioning as a conduit to steer users to the counterfeit banking sites.