DOJ Drops the Hammer: Seizes $225M in Crypto from Global Pig Butchering Scams!

Holy crypto crackdown, Batman! The U.S. Department of Justice just slammed the gavel on more than $225 million in digital dough linked to some seriously shady pig butchering scams. This ain't no small potatoes!

On June 18, the U.S. Attorney's Office wasn't playing around when they filed a civil complaint in the District of Columbia's U.S. District Court. They're gunning for the forfeiture of a whopping $225.3 million in crypto, all tied to those nasty large-scale crypto confidence fraud schemes. Watch out, scammers!

Tether Joins the Fight, Freezes $225 Million

Guess what? Most of that seized cash was in Tether (USDT). Yep, you heard it right!

Tether, the big shot behind that U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, stepped up and said, "We're in!" They teamed up with the feds to freeze those assets. The U.S. Secret Service and the FBI did some serious digging and found out those millions in USDT were straight-up scam money.

The DOJ spilled the beans, saying these funds were all part of a massive pig butchering scheme that scammed victims worldwide. The wallet addresses holding these seized assets? Part of what officials called "a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network." Talk about a tangled web!

Blockchain Sleuths Uncover the Scam Empire

These crypto investment fraudsters thought they were slick, using a crazy complex web of transactions to hide their dirty money. But guess what? They ain't slicker than blockchain analytics tools!

The authorities brought out the big guns, using those blockchain tools to trace the transactions and connect the dots to the scam operation. The DOJ dropped the bomb, saying these scammers ripped off more than 400 victims around the globe. Yikes!

U.S. Attorney Pirro didn't mince words, saying, "Under my watch, with President Trump and Attorney General Bondi backing me up, we're leading the charge against these crypto-confidence scams. We're teaming up with law enforcement across the country to snatch back stolen funds and yank them out of the hands of those foreign crooks. Our goal? Making victims whole again!"

Remember that FBI report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center? It said crypto-related investment fraud schemes fleeced unsuspecting victims out of over $5.8 billion in 2024. But hold onto your hats, because a more recent FBI report from April 2025 blew the lid off total crypto scam losses at over $9 billion for 2024—and get this, pig butchering schemes made up more than half of that staggering figure!

And in May 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control didn't mess around when they sanctioned a Myanmar warlord and his militia for a laundry list of crimes, including money laundering, human trafficking, and crypto fraud connected to those pig butchering operations. The feds are taking no prisoners in this fight!