The U.S. Attorney's Office is taking a bite back against a high-tech "pig-butchering" scam that's fleeced Massachusetts residents out of their hard-earned cash. In a move ripped right from a cyberthriller, the Feds are filing a civil forfeiture action to bag about $900,000 worth of cryptocurrency, suspected to be dirty money from a cunning fraud scheme according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts folks found themselves on the chopping block after scammers set up a fraudulent crypto-investment playground. Using a sinister love-trust scam combo, these digital butchers wooed victims with the promise of big-buck returns and got them to invest in phantom platforms. According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, the scam's butcher's bill includes a whopping 204,315.87 Tether and a sweet 18.9649 bitcoin slice, all snug in Binance.com's digital wallets, until copped by the authorities.
The investigation into this foul play started last September after one victim's financial pot was raided by these cyber swindlers. But the deeper the feds dug, the more victims they unearthed, buried in the fallout of this "pig-butchering" fiasco. The crafty con artists, allegedly, lured in their prey with digital sweet-nothings before leading them to the financial slaughterhouse. As claimed by Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy and Special Agent in Charge Andrew Murphy of the Secret Service's Boston Field Office, there's a trail of crypto breadcrumbs leading right back to the cookie jar theft.
The details contained in the civil forfeiture complaint are allegations. The United States Attorney’s Office has not filed a corresponding criminal action on the matter.
