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- US prosecutors have seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrencies linked to international fraud schemes that targeted victims across the US and Canada.
- The money was recovered through five civil forfeiture complaints filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., tied to investment and romance scams.
- This amount adds to the more than $800 million recovered by the Fraud Center Strike Force, which was launched in late 2025.
US prosecutors have seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrencies linked to an international scam that defrauded thousands of victims across the United States and Canada, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, working with the Secret Service’s Washington field office, filed a request Five civil forfeiture complaints On Tuesday, each was linked to a separate investigation into fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms and online romance schemes. Agents said they traced the illicit proceeds through hundreds of intermediate wallet addresses, where they were mixed with funds from other victims.
The largest complaint seeks about $12.1 million linked to romance scams that infected more than 200 people, followed by about $10.4 million reported to Canadian authorities across more than 270 suspected victim transactions. The remaining three cases range from $285,000 to $2.4 million, including one case in which scammers posed as recovery agents offering to recover money stolen in a previous scam.
In each case, the money launderers were mostly based in Southeast Asia, with IP addresses in China, Malaysia and Cambodia, prosecutors said.
Fraud Center Strike Force
The confiscation stems from the striking force of the fraud center, Fired In November 2025 by US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. Investigators “succeeded in infiltrating complex laundering schemes” to access the funds, Pirro said in a statement. All five investigations remain open, with recovered funds being brought to the strike force Total distance Past $800 million.
In each case, prosecutors said, the money launderers were mostly based in Southeast Asia, with IP addresses in China, Malaysia and Cambodia — part of a fraudulent economy increasingly run from the region and Reported by Interpol As a global threat.
A lot of cryptocurrency investments and romance scams are being exploited Forced labor vehicles And in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, where trafficked workers are forced to defraud victims around the world. In October, US and British authorities charged the Cambodian Prince Group and Cambodia Corporation More than 127,000 bitcoins were seized of the network – then worth approximately $12 billion, representing the largest civil seizure and forfeiture in the history of the Department of Justice.
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