The FBI thanks Tether for the seizure of funds from the fake Trump-Vance inaugural committee

A couple of days ago, the prosecutor’s office of the District of Columbia, in the USA, announced in a statement published on the official website of the Department of Justice that Tether assisted the FBI in seizing 40,000 USDT.

The statement however also reveals that in reality the recovered funds are only a small part of those that had been stolen.

The theft of funds and the deception

Everything originates from Steve Witkoff, a con artist based in Nigeria

Witkoff and some of his accomplices posed as members of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, convincing the victim to give them 250,300 dollars in criptovalute.

The scammers actually had nothing to do with the real committee that helped Donald Trump raise funds for his inauguration ceremony at the White House in January, along with Vice President JD Vance

Witkoff was sending emails posing as co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. He used a very similar, but different, email address compared to that of the real Inaugural Committee, because while the official one was on the domain t47inaugural.com, the fraudster’s was on the domain t47lnaugural.com with the lowercase “i” replaced by a lowercase “L”. The victim did not notice the difference, substantial but not very visible

The scammer then asked to send funds to a crypto wallet, and in particular, on December 26, 2024, the victim sent 250,300 USDT, believing in this way to have allocated them to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. Instead, within two hours of receiving the funds, Witkoff transferred them to other crypto wallets

The FBI recovers the funds thanks to the help of Tether

The victim realized the deception only after sending the funds, and at that point filed a report

Despite Witkoff having laundered the funds through other wallets, the FBI, with the help of Tether, managed to trace and recover at least 40,300 USDT, particularly thanks to blockchain analysis

The FBI has confiscated those funds, and now the green light from the judiciary is awaited for the final reimbursement to the victim

The United States Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced that her office has also filed a complaint as part of this corporate email compromise operation.

Now the case is under investigation by the Criminal and Cyber Division of the Washington office of the FBI. The prosecution is entrusted to the assistant prosecutor Rick Blaylock, Jr.

The statement from the prosecutor’s office invites citizens who believe they are victims of a cybercrime, such as the compromise of corporate emails, cryptocurrency scams, romance scams, investment scams, and scams like “pig butchering“, to contact the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center on this website.

The commentary

With the official statement, the Department of Justice also publicly and explicitly thanked Tether for the assistance provided in carrying out the transfer of these assets, along with the deputy director in charge of the FBI, Steven J. Jensen, from the Washington office

The prosecutor Jeanine Ferris Pirro stated:

“All donors should verify over and over again that they are sending cryptocurrencies to the intended recipient. It can be extremely difficult for law enforcement to recover lost funds due to the extremely complex nature of the blockchain. However, my office and our law enforcement partners are ready to tackle criminals and compensate victims”.

The deputy director in charge Steven J. Jensen added:

“Identity theft scams take many forms and cost Americans billions of dollars each year. To avoid falling victim, carefully check email addresses, website URLs, and the spelling of all messages you receive. Scammers often exploit subtle differences to deceive you and earn your trust. Never send money, gift cards, cryptocurrencies, or other assets to people you do not know personally or have only interacted with online or by phone. Report suspected scams to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov”.