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- Authorities seek to seize $8.2 million USDT from a crypto scam that deceived victims into investing in fraudulent platforms.
- A total of 33 victims lost $4.9 million, while five others, still unidentified, were scammed out of an additional $1 million.
- Scammers used pig butchering tactics, building trust through fake friendships before trapping victims in a complex financial fraud.
The law enforcement authorities have sought to freeze about 8.2 million USDT in the three wallets associated with the fraudulent business. The money was traced to several fraudsters who defraud their targets under false pretences of investing on fake cryptocurrency platforms.
According to a recent report, across the United States 33 people were victimized, and $4.9 million of their money was stolen from them. The other five victims whom investigators also recognized to have lost another $1 million remain unidentified. The criminals had to use the pig butchering technique which is a long con technique where one has to spend considerable time with their target in order to defraud them.
Crypto Scam Through Fake Texts
The scam started with con artists练delivering unsolicited ‘wrong number’ text messages through phones, dating sites, and social sites. The individuals involved got acquainted with the targets, making friends with them before revealing to them that she was involved with a company that was dealing with cryptocurrencies and wanted their assistance. Participants were convinced they were trading later on to find that they were in a complex financial fraud.
The fraudsters told the victims to open the account with very popular brands such as Crypto.com and Coinbase. After they deposited funds they were convinced to transfer their money to other misleading trading websites operated by fraudsters. In many cases, people were allowed to take small amount of money early enough to make them feel that it is actually a legal proposition.
The fraudsters disabled the users from withdrawing their money and advertised that further taxes must be paid to get the money. These victims in their endeavour to recover their embezzled monies fulfilled the demands of these criminals, only to discover along the line that; their money was gone.
One of the worst scenarios was illustrated by the Lake County, Ohio, lady who lost $663,000 which she had in her Roth IRA, among other things. She filed the case to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center in June 2024, the case triggered investigation resulting to confiscation of the stolen money.
Crypto Fraud Funds Seized
Law enforcers investigated blockchain and identified the stolen crypto to three particular addresses. Thus with the help of Tether, the investigative agents of the FBI were able to freeze the fraud proceeds and transfer it to a wallet controlled by the law enforcement. On February 27, 2025, Carol Skutnik, the U.S. Attorney, and James Morford as the Assistant U.S. Attorney emerged in court to request the court to permanently forfeit all the assets under litigation.
The detectives believed the seized accounts contained a lot of more money associated with money laundering and wire fraud. Pig butchering schemes emerged to be prominent among the scams where 33.2% of scam-related crypto inflows were received in 2024, while the chain analysis found that there had been an increase of 210% in deposit to the fraudulent platform in one year out of the current year.
For now, with increasing cases of cryptocurrency-related scams being detected by the police, authorities encourage the public to be wary. They urge new entrants to the place to always confirm any trading platform before dealing with it and shun any invation that comes their way Fusion media group is a scam.
