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Tether, the issuer of the popular USDT cryptocurrency, is helping US law enforcement agencies investigate a large-scale fraudulent scheme that mainly targeted elderly citizens. The Office of the District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois confirmed the information, thanking the company for its prompt transfer of assets related to the case totaling $ 1.4 million.
According to court documents, the case under investigation involved an organized group of cybercriminals who specialized in technical support fraud. Their well-established scheme began with the introduction of malware on the victims computers. The program generated false warnings about hacking devices.
Then the scammers, posing as employees of well-known IT companies like Microsoft or Apple, called the victims and convinced them that to solve the problem, they urgently needed to transfer funds to supposedly secure government accounts to protect them from hackers.
To make it more convincing, the attackers showed the victims fake documents, including those signed by influential personalities, such as the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. They also imitated emails from financial institutions.
After that, the criminals forced the victims to install applications for remote access, open cryptocurrency wallets and transfer their savings to them. In one of the recorded cases, a man transferred from 3 to 4 million dollars, including funds from the accounts of his wife.
A significant part of the stolen money was converted into the Tether USDT stablecoin, after which the scammers tried to launder and withdraw these funds. However, the FBI in time identified a number of crypto wallets associated with illegal activity, and demanded that Tether block them.
Tether removed the stolen assets from circulation and issued an equivalent amount of new USDT, which was transferred to an account controlled by the US government for return to its rightful owners. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2022, the total damage from such fraudulent schemes with technical support exceeded $ 924 million.
This incident was not the first case of Tether's cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Previously, the company helped to recover about 9 million USDT stolen as part of operations using the pig butchering scheme. In addition, Tether blocked 225 million USDT linked to an international human trafficking syndicate operating in Southeast Asia.
Tether, the issuer of the popular USDT cryptocurrency, is helping US law enforcement agencies investigate a large-scale fraudulent scheme that mainly targeted elderly citizens. The Office of the District Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois confirmed the information, thanking the company for its prompt transfer of assets related to the case totaling $ 1.4 million.
According to court documents, the case under investigation involved an organized group of cybercriminals who specialized in technical support fraud. Their well-established scheme began with the introduction of malware on the victims computers. The program generated false warnings about hacking devices.
Then the scammers, posing as employees of well-known IT companies like Microsoft or Apple, called the victims and convinced them that to solve the problem, they urgently needed to transfer funds to supposedly secure government accounts to protect them from hackers.
To make it more convincing, the attackers showed the victims fake documents, including those signed by influential personalities, such as the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. They also imitated emails from financial institutions.
After that, the criminals forced the victims to install applications for remote access, open cryptocurrency wallets and transfer their savings to them. In one of the recorded cases, a man transferred from 3 to 4 million dollars, including funds from the accounts of his wife.
A significant part of the stolen money was converted into the Tether USDT stablecoin, after which the scammers tried to launder and withdraw these funds. However, the FBI in time identified a number of crypto wallets associated with illegal activity, and demanded that Tether block them.
Tether removed the stolen assets from circulation and issued an equivalent amount of new USDT, which was transferred to an account controlled by the US government for return to its rightful owners. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in 2022, the total damage from such fraudulent schemes with technical support exceeded $ 924 million.
This incident was not the first case of Tether's cooperation with law enforcement agencies. Previously, the company helped to recover about 9 million USDT stolen as part of operations using the pig butchering scheme. In addition, Tether blocked 225 million USDT linked to an international human trafficking syndicate operating in Southeast Asia.
