The US Department of Justice has recovered $40,300 in cryptocurrency that was stolen in a scam involving a fake Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee email.
On December 24, 2024, a donor received an email that appeared to come from Steve Witkoff, the committee’s co-chair, according to the Department of Justice’s press release on July 2.
The message used a nearly identical domain name to the real one, which swapped the letter “i” for a lowercase “l” in “t47lnaugural.com”.
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The victim transferred $250,300 in USDT, and the scammers immediately moved the funds through multiple crypto wallets to make it harder to trace.
Investigators at the FBI’s Washington Field Office used blockchain analysis to follow the trail of transactions. They were able to locate and recover $40,300 of the stolen funds. Prosecutors have filed a civil forfeiture case to return the recovered amount to the victim.
Steven Jensen of the FBI stated, “Impersonation scams take many forms and cost Americans billions in losses each year”. He advised the public to carefully verify email addresses and never send money or crypto to individuals they do not know personally.
He added that scammers often rely on small details, including minor changes in email addresses or domains, to trick victims into believing fraudulent messages are legitimate.
On June 18, the Department of Justice seized $225 million in crypto linked to scams that misled over 400 people into fake investment schemes. How? Read the full story.
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