That pattern showed up again when victims saw their balances climb by hundreds of dollars, only to find withdrawals halted and customer support gone silent. Many of those cases ended with funds frozen in one single cold‑storage wallet.
Is This the End of Crypto Scams?
The U.S. Secret Service just launched a global crackdown on rug pulls, phishing scams, and stolen crypto — seizing over $400M so far.
They’re teaming up with 60+ countries and top exchanges to clean up the space and hunt scammers.
In one example, analysts traced about $4.1 million in scam proceeds to an account tied to a Nigerian passport. A brief VPN slip revealed an IP address. That clue led British police to arrest a suspect in Guildford.
An American teenager who lost $300 twice in a sextortion case also played a key role as an unwitting money mule. Online, an investigator sent a photo of a model‑looking person to hook the victim. It turned out to be an older man in Russia. Scammers will go to great lengths to mask their real identities.
Hype and confusion are fueling a rise in crypto-related crime.
The Secret Service isn’t working alone. Kali Smith, who runs the crypto team, has trained officials in over 60 countries. Some of those nations had no idea these schemes were happening on their soil until the classes began.
Law enforcement officers learned how to read domain records and follow blockchain trails. Now local agencies are shutting down scams faster than before.
Industry players have chipped in too. Coinbase and Tether helped trace transactions and freeze suspect wallets in high‑profile cases.
One of the largest single recoveries involved $225 million in USDT linked to romance scams. These partnerships show that a few slip‑ups by criminals can lead straight to frozen funds.
Fraud involving digital coins now tops the list of US internet crime losses. Americans reported $9.3 billion stolen in crypto scams in 2024, which was more than half of the $16.6 billion lost to all internet crimes that year, according to FBI data.
During the first six months of 2025, victims lost $2.50 billion to hacks, scams and exploits—already topping the $2.41 billion wiped out over all of 2024, according to reports.
Featured image from ABC News, chart from TradingView
