On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had successfully thwarted some fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes by confiscating virtual currency worth $112 million.
According to the report, judges in the Districts of Arizona, California’s Central District, and Idaho’s District approved the enforcement of seizure orders for a total of six crypto accounts associated with fraudulent activity.
The statement claims that the alleged fraudsters formed close ties with their internet victims before persuading them to invest in false cryptocurrency trading websites.
The DOJ will return the cryptocurrencies to the victims
Transnational criminal organizations are merging confidence schemes with technological savvy to defraud Americans of their hard-earned money, according to Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
These “vicious frauds” in particular have ruined families and hijacked people’s life savings. He added,
“Now that we have seized this virtual currency, we will seek to swiftly return it to victims.”
General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. stated that more has to be done to issue warnings and that potential victims to be cautious when approaching strangers online.
He urged users to closely consider any financial advice, particularly regarding cryptocurrencies, that they receive from individuals they have not personally met. He also reminded them that investments that look too good to be true usually are.
As cryptocurrency-related frauds continue to rise, the US government is taking yet another measure to protect common cryptocurrency users and investors.
This comes after reports of increased fraudulent activities in the cryptocurrency market, with scammers using various tactics to defraud unsuspecting victims. The DOJ’s efforts to protect investors will help to create a safer environment for those looking to invest in cryptocurrencies.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice reaffirmed that investment fraud caused the largest losses of any scam submitted by the public to the FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3) in 2022, reaching $3.31 billion.
The majority of these scams, which increased by an astounding 183% from 2021 to $2.57 billion in recorded losses last year, involved cryptocurrency frauds, including what they refer to as “pig butchering.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that victims between the ages of 30 and 49 made up the majority of reports. And the majority of them are primarily targeted by dating websites, phone calls, text messages, social networking sites, and other online communication tools.
