Operation Broken Trust, the largest investment fraud sweep by the Federal government of the United States, was conducted between August 16 and December 1, 2010. The stated purpose of the operation was to "root out and expose" investment scams within the U.S. and to educate the public. It was announced that the operation involved 343 criminal cases with damages of $8.3 billion and 189 civil cases with damages of $2.1 billion; more than 120,000 victims were affected.