U.S. Prosecutors Move to Seize $25 Million in Crypto From Scam Networks
Five civil forfeiture complaints in Washington, D.C., target funds Secret Service agents traced from more than 470 romance and investment scam victims across the U.S. and Canada.
CANADA — Federal prosecutors moved to seize more than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to international romance and investment scams that targeted victims in the U.S. and Canada.
The funds surface across five civil forfeiture complaints filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, each stemming from a separate Secret Service investigation, according to coindesk. Agents traced money through hundreds of wallet addresses and froze crypto linked to more than 270 suspected investment scam transactions and over 200 romance scam victims. The two largest cases seek about $12.1 million tied to online romance schemes and $10.4 million linked to fraudulent investment platforms, according to coindesk. Three smaller complaints seek roughly $1.23 million, $2.39 million and $285,000.
Investigators described tactics that preyed on trust and desperation. In one case, scammers cut off contact after a victim tried to withdraw money from what looked like a crypto investment account. In another, fraudsters approached a person who had already lost money and promised to recover it for a fee, a tactic known as a recovery scam. Secret Service agents traced the funds from thousands of victims to money launderers operating in Southeast Asia, according to decrypt.co. Prosecutors filed the complaints Tuesday in Washington, D.C., linking the crypto to networks that reached across two countries.
The seizures matter beyond the courtroom. Romance and investment fraud, often grouped under the label “pig butchering,” has drained billions from ordinary savers who moved retirement funds and wages into fake trading platforms. Recovering seized crypto offers a narrow path for some victims to reclaim their losses, while forfeiture actions signal that blockchain transactions leave a permanent trail investigators can follow. This has happened before, and at far larger scale. The cases join more than $800 million that authorities say they have recovered through the Scam Center Strike Force, a federal task force launched in November 2025, according to coindesk. The next step rests with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which must rule on whether the government may permanently take the assets. A date for a decision has not been announced.
Civil forfeiture over crypto fraud isn’t the first time U.S. authorities have chased stolen digital money across borders. The Justice Department seized roughly 94,000 bitcoin tied to the 2016 hack of the Bitfinex exchange, then valued near $3.6 billion, in what officials called the largest financial seizure in the department’s history, according to justice.gov. Investigators followed the coins through years of laundering attempts before arresting a New York couple in February 2022. That case showed that funds parked for years on a public ledger can still return to court, and it reshaped how prosecutors pursue on-chain theft.