The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday, April 3 that federal investigators seized $112 million worth of funds linked to elaborate cryptocurrency investment scams named “pig butchering.”
Court documents said that the currency accounts were used in long-term fraud schemes where victims would be enticed to make investments in fraudulent cryptocurrency ventures. The funds provided by victims were instead laundered to the scammers who had conned them. One of the accounts involved in the warrant served in Los Angeles involved a professional woman with a cryptocurrency account who was contacted on LinkedIn by a scammer that offered to invest the victim’s money into another fund. The victim later spent over $2 million as a result of the scam.