Federal prosecutors have filed a civil complaint regarding a cryptocurrency scam that allegedly defrauded victims by impersonating members of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. The complaint, submitted to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., claims that scammers used deceptive email addresses to mislead individuals into sending over $250,300 in USDT stablecoin.
The scammers created email addresses that closely mimicked official ones, replacing the letter "i" with a lowercase "l" in the domain name. This tactic allowed them to convince victims that they were making legitimate donations to the committee. The emails, sent in December, purported to be from Steve Witkoff, who was identified as a co-chair of the inaugural committee.
The complaint details that the victims believed they were contributing to a legitimate cause, only to find out that their funds had been misappropriated. The U.S. government is seeking to seize nearly 40,400 USDT from the scammers in an effort to deter such unlawful activities and potentially compensate the victims.
Investigations revealed that approximately half of the stolen cryptocurrency was traced to an account on Binance, associated with a person named Ehiremen Aigbokhan in Nigeria. Shortly after the initial transactions, a significant portion of the funds was dispersed to various other cryptocurrency addresses.
Binance reportedly cooperated with authorities by providing transaction records and freezing the relevant accounts. The case highlights ongoing concerns regarding cryptocurrency fraud and the tactics employed by scammers to exploit unsuspecting individuals.