The office of United States Attorney in Ohio is leaving millions of people in crypto seized from a scam operation and returning it to the victims, who were cheated in fake investments.
According to one recently statementOfficials have officially asked the court to seize about 8.2 million dollars of USDT held at three cryptocurrency wallets. The assets under consideration include the funds directly associated with the loss of the victims.
The fund was confiscated from scammers who launched a fake crypto investment scheme by cheating the victims through “wrong number” text messages and fraud trading platforms. At least 33 people across the US lost a combined $ 4.9 million, while five more victims, still unknown, additional $ 1 million lost.
This scam shuts up scammers to send random number to random number “wrong number” texts on their phone, dating applications and professional meat-up groups to interact. Subsequently, they gradually try to befriend the victim before making them a suspected crypto investment, a strategy is usually referred to as pig butchers.
The victims are then directed step by step on how to open legitimate accounts on platforms such as Crypto.com and Coinbase. Once their accounts are funded, scammers celebrate them to transfer money that looks like a professional investment site, which is in fact, a malicious platform controlled by the scammers.
In particular, some victims were also allowed to withdraw a small amount of early to make the plan real. Eventually, their funds were completely blocked, and when they tried to cache out, scammers demanded additional payment in the name of tax requirements.
“Knowing that the scam will soon run its syllabus, the fraudsters used the final-khai efforts to lie to the victims that they had to pay taxes. Finally, the victims were dropped out of their accounts on the investment platform and lost their money, ”the officials said.
A woman from Ohio’s Lake County, a victim allegedly lost her entire life savings of $ 663,000, including her money from her Roth Ira. He reported the scam to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center in June 2024, which led to an investigation.
After a blockchain analysis, authorities discovered the stolen crypto in three wallets. The FBI carried out a seizure warrant, and with the help of Tithi, the fund was frozen and transferred to the law-enforcement-controlled wallet.
When 27 on 27 February ComplaintAmerican Attorney Carol Scootnik and Assistant American Attorney James Morford asked the court to formally seize the recovered crypto, saying that accounts also had additional funds that were lost to the victims, who were allegedly tied to money laundering and wire fraud.
As reported earlier by Crypto.news, the pig butcate was responsible for 33.2% of the scam in 2024 in the butcher scams. According to Channelis, 210% year-to-year increased for these scams increased.
