
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to claim more than $225 million in cryptocurrency allegedly connected to international investment fraud schemes.
The action marks the largest crypto seizure to date involving so-called "confidence scams," in which victims were led to believe they were making legitimate investments in digital assets.
According to the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, federal investigators from the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service used blockchain analytics to trace the movement of funds across a wide network of cryptocurrency addresses.
These addresses, the complaint says, were part of a laundering infrastructure that facilitated hundreds of thousands of transactions designed to obscure the origin and ownership of illicit proceeds.
The investigation identified losses affecting more than 400 individuals worldwide.
Victims were allegedly defrauded by operators posing as credible cryptocurrency investment platforms.
The complaint outlines how the scammers moved the stolen funds across numerous accounts to conceal their source.
"This seizure of $225.3 million in funds linked to cryptocurrency investment scams marks the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history," said Shawn Bradstreet, special agent in charge of the agency...