The DOJ is seeking to forfeit $25 million in crypto from five fraud networks that tricked victims via romance scams and fake investment platforms, authorities said.
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The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to forfeit more than $25 million in cryptocurrency recovered from five investigations into international fraud networks that used fake investment platforms and romance scams to target victims in the United States and Canada.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., said investigators from the U.S. Secret Service’s Cyber Fraud Task Force traced money laundering networks connected to thousands of suspected victims worldwide. The victims were persuaded to send funds to what they believed were legitimate crypto investment sites, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said.
The largest single recovery came from a romance scam operation that affected more than 200 victims. Authorities are seeking to forfeit roughly $12.1 million tied to that scheme, according to court filings. The second-largest investigation, triggered by a Canadian alert in late 2024, identified more than 270 suspected victim transactions. Prosecutors are seeking about $10.4 million in that case.
Three smaller investigations round out the action. One case reported in May 2026 seeks roughly $1.2 million, another from March 2026 seeks about $2.4 million, and a fifth involving a fee-based recovery scam – where victims were asked to pay to recover already stolen crypto – targets nearly $285,000.
Investigators said the laundering operations behind all five cases were largely based in Southeast Asia. The Justice Department linked IP addresses to China, Malaysia, and Cambodia, showing how fraud groups move stolen digital assets across jurisdictions before victims or authorities can trace them.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said the seizures demonstrated the results of pursuing international laundering networks rather than focusing only on the fraud itself. “We dismantled complex laundering networks, protected victims, and interrupted criminal financial channels,” she said in a statement.
The recoveries bring the total seized through the Scam Center Strike Force – an initiative Pirro launched in November 2025 – to more than $800 million, prosecutors said.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to recover 327,829.72 USDT allegedly tied to an online romance scam. A resident was persuaded through a dating app to invest in fake crypto platforms before the funds were routed through multiple wallets and converted into Tether’s stablecoin, court filings from March 2026 said.
In July 2025, the Justice Department filed a separate complaint seeking nearly $2.3 million worth of Bitcoin allegedly linked to the Chaos ransomware group. FBI investigators gained access to a wallet associated with a suspected member of the ransomware-as-a-service operation and transferred the funds into government custody, prosecutors said.
The Treasury Department has also expanded crypto enforcement. In March 2026, it sanctioned two networks allegedly tied to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, accusing them of using Ethereum transactions to move fentanyl trafficking proceeds.
Civil forfeiture proceedings allow eligible victims to seek compensation once ownership claims are resolved by the court, prosecutors said. No timeline for the claims process has been set.
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