According to the indictment submitted by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, U.S. federal prosecutors seized $40,300 in cryptocurrency recovered from an email scam impersonating the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a press release on Wednesday that the scam scheme tricked a donor into sending $250,300 worth of USDT stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain to scammers posing as committee officials.
The scammers sent an email on December 24, 2024, that appeared to be from Steve Witkoff, the co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. This fraudulent email used the domain @t47lnaugural.com, replacing the lowercase letter "l" with "i" to deceive the recipient.
The victim believed the request was legitimate and transferred the funds to a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by the scammers two days later. The stolen funds were quickly laundered through multiple cryptocurrency wallets.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) successfully tracked and recovered the $40,300 in stolen USDT through blockchain analysis. Prosecutors are now seeking to return these assets to the victim through a civil forfeiture action.
Steven Jensen, Assistant Director of the FBI's Washington Field Office, stated, "Impersonation scams come in many forms and cost Americans billions of dollars each year." He urged the public to carefully check the email sender's address, never send cryptocurrency to unknown contacts, and added:
In May 2024, Trump announced that his presidential campaign would accept cryptocurrency donations through Coinbase Commerce. He launched an official fundraising page supporting Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Ripple (XRP), USDC, Solana (SOL), and other cryptocurrencies.
The U.S. Department of Justice praised Tether for its role in helping to seize the stolen funds. The company assisted law enforcement in freezing and transferring the frozen assets.
In June, federal agencies also thanked Tether for helping to seize approximately $225 million in USDT related to a large-scale "pig butchering" scam that deceived victims in multiple countries.
In another incident, on May 22, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to seize over $24 million in cryptocurrency from Russian national Rustam Gallyamov, who is accused of developing the Qakbot malware.
Related: Reportedly, a crypto billionaire was kidnapped and fought back, biting off the kidnapper's finger.
Original text: “DOJ Recovers $40K Crypto from Trump-Vance Inaugural Scam”
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