U.S. Authorities Pursue Return of $2.3M Crypto Scam Funds

The United States Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts has initiated a civil forfeiture action to return $2.3 million in cryptocurrency to 37 victims of online scams and fraud.

This move comes after an investigation into a “pig butchering” scam that targeted a Massachusetts resident, who was deceived into transferring $400,000 to the scammers. The cryptocurrencies, including nearly 300,000 USDC, 1.5 million USDT, 102,000 TRX, 3,000 SOL, and 14,000 ADA, were seized from two Binance accounts in January. The scammers then moved the funds to other wallets, which investigators linked to funds from the other 36 victims.

The civil forfeiture action is a required step in the forfeiture process, allowing third parties to claim the property before the funds are returned to the victims.

This action follows news from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, which recently seized $1.4 million in Tether from an unhosted virtual cryptocurrency wallet associated with a suspected tech support scam targeting the elderly. Tether cooperated in recovering these assets, burning the funds linked to the alleged scammers and reissuing them in government-controlled wallets for return to the victims.