CHICAGO – The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago has seized about $1.4 million worth of Tether (USDT), a cryptocurrency tied to the U.S. dollar, under a court-authorized seizure warrant.
The funds, obtained through an alleged fraud scheme, will be returned to any and all victims. This marks one of the first instances where the United States has recovered USDT from an unhosted virtual currency wallet.
According to authorities, the alleged fraud began as a computer popup on a victim’s computer claiming their device was compromised. The popup would instruct the victim to call Microsoft or Apple – depending on the kind of device they owned – at a certain phone number.
During the call, individuals posing as tech support employees claimed the victim’s bank account was compromised. The call was then transferred to other scammers posing as the victim’s bank fraud department. They would persuade the victims, predominantly elderly people, to convert money from traditional bank accounts into cryptocurrency to secure it from hackers.
The funds were then transferred into unhosted virtual currency wallets controlled by the scammers.
According to the FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report, tech support scams in 2023 caused losses exceeding $924 million.
An illustration picture taken in London on May 8, 2022, shows a gold plated souvenir cryptocurrency Tether (USDT) coin arranged beside a screen displaying US dollar notes. Tether (USDT) is an Ethereum token known as a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of the US dollar, and is currently the largest stablecoin with a market value of USD 83 billion dollars. (Photo by Justin TALLIS / AFP) (Photo by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
