Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that her office has seized more than $225.3 million in cryptocurrency connected to a vast international fraud and money laundering network.
This operation, described as the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history, targeted funds linked to online investment scams that defrauded hundreds of victims worldwide, including a number of Americans.
It’s the largest-ever seizure of funds stolen in so-called “crypto confidence” scams, which dupe people into investing in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes, the department said.The scam affected more than 400 people worldwide, including dozens of Americans, and caused millions of dollars in losses, according to a complaint unsealed Wednesday. The scammers conducted “hundreds of thousands” of transactions in an effort to launder the stolen cryptocurrency, according to the Justice Department….Losses from crypto investment scams have surged in recent years. Victims reported nearly $4 billion in crypto-related investment losses in 2023 compared to $2.57 billion in 2022, according to the FBI. That number increased to $5.8 billion in 2024.
The seized funds are now subject to forfeiture proceedings aimed at eventually returning money to victims.
The U.S. Secret Service and FBI used blockchain analysis and other tools to trace the cryptocurrency back to stolen assets. The DOJ credited Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, for assisting in the operation.According to the complaint, the funds were linked to the theft and laundering of money from victims of cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, commonly known as confidence scams that often involve romance.The network relied on hundreds of thousands of transactions to obscure the origin of the funds, using sophisticated blockchain maneuvers to conceal the flow of stolen assets.
The Trump administration is clearly moving to protect Americans from crypto scams. Last week, the DOJ found five men (whop operated out of Cambodia) guilty of laundering over $36 million from victims.
The defendants, Joseph Wong, Yicheng Zhang, Jose Somarriba, Shengsheng He, and Jingliang Su, used various tactics to build trust with victims before convincing them to invest in fake crypto ventures. The victims’ funds were never invested and were instead stolen outright. The scammers falsely claimed the investments were gaining value to keep the victims engaged.The laundering operation was sophisticated and multinational. Somarriba and He created a shell company called “Axis Digital” and opened a Deltec Bank account in the Bahamas to receive the funds. Su played a key role in converting stolen money into USDT, while Wong managed a laundering network that moved funds through international bank accounts. Zhang operated two US-based bank accounts to process the illegal proceeds. The stolen assets were eventually sent to the orchestrators of the scam based in Cambodia.Zhang and Wong now face up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to launder money, and are among the most severely charged. The remaining three men could face up to five years each for conspiring to run an unlicensed money services business. Su is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 17. These developments bring the total number of guilty pleas in connection with the scam to eight, including previous admissions of guilt from Daren Li and Lu Zhang for similar charges.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY