The Chicago branch of the United States Attorney’s Office recently made an important breakthrough in the fight against fraud. On March 12, they successfully seized around $1.4 million in Tether (USDT), a popular cryptocurrency. The funds were believed to be the proceeds from a customer support scam.
This achievement was made possible through the collaborative efforts of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Interestingly, Tether itself played a role in facilitating the operation.
According to a press release issued by Tether, the funds in question were stolen through a customer support scam that primarily targeted elderly individuals. The victims were lured through pop-up ads on their computers, which claimed that their devices had been compromised. To resolve the issue, they were provided with a fake customer support number to call. Little did they know, they were being directed to another scammer posing as a support agent.
Once in contact with the fraudulent support agent, victims were informed that their bank accounts had also been compromised. To safeguard their funds, they were instructed to transfer their assets to USDT. Unfortunately, this allowed the scammers to gain control over the victims’ tokens, effectively cutting off any further communication.
The United States Attorney’s Office revealed that this seizure is one of the first instances in which USDT has been recovered from an unhosted digital currency wallet. The investigation is still ongoing, and the exact details of how the funds were recovered remain unknown. However, an affidavit filed on January 24 suggests that law enforcement agents were able to trace the funds to five distinct wallets.
The document further elaborates that these suspected wallets contained assets that were “traceable to proceeds of a wire fraud scheme involving financial fraud and were transferred in relatively small batches of currency through a series of intermediary addresses for no discernible purpose, very probably in an effort to launder the proceeds.” As authorities dig deeper into this case, they hope to uncover more information and potentially bring the perpetrators to justice.