U.S. prosecutors have seized greater than $25 million in cryptocurrency linked to worldwide fraud schemes that focused victims throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The cash was recovered via 5 civil forfeiture complaints filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., tied to funding and romance scams.
It provides to the greater than $800 million recovered by the Rip-off Middle Strike Drive, launched in late 2025.
U.S. prosecutors have seized greater than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to worldwide scams that defrauded hundreds of victims throughout the USA and Canada, the Justice Division stated Tuesday.
The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia, working with the Secret Service’s Washington Subject Workplace, filed 5 civil forfeiture complaints on Tuesday, every tied to a separate investigation into fraudulent crypto funding platforms and on-line romance schemes. Brokers stated they traced illicit proceeds via lots of of middleman pockets addresses, the place they’d been commingled with funds from different victims.
At present, @USAttyPirro and the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia, along with the U.S. Secret Service Washington Subject Workplace, introduced that a number of investigations carried out by their Cyber Fraud Job Drive have resulted within the seizure of greater than $25 million…
— U.S. Lawyer DC (@USAO_DC) July 21, 2026
The biggest grievance seeks some $12.1 million tied to romance scams that hit greater than 200 folks, adopted by about $10.4 million flagged by Canadian authorities throughout greater than 270 suspected sufferer transactions. The three remaining instances vary from $285,000 to $2.4 million, together with one through which scammers posed as restoration brokers providing to retrieve funds stolen in an earlier fraud.
In every case, the launderers have been largely primarily based in Southeast Asia, with IP addresses in China, Malaysia, and Cambodia, prosecutors stated.
The Rip-off Middle Strike Drive
The seizure stems from the Rip-off Middle Strike Drive, launched in November 2025 by U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Ferris Pirro. Investigators “minimize via advanced laundering schemes” to achieve the cash, Pirro stated in a press release. The 5 investigations stay open, with the recovered funds bringing the strike power’s whole haul previous $800 million.
In every case, prosecutors stated, the launderers have been largely primarily based in Southeast Asia, with IP addresses in China, Malaysia, and Cambodia—a part of a rip-off financial system more and more run from the area and flagged by Interpol as a worldwide risk.
A lot crypto funding and romance fraud is operated out of forced-labor compounds in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos, the place trafficked staff are coerced into defrauding victims worldwide. In October, U.S. and UK authorities charged Cambodia’s Prince Group and seized greater than 127,000 BTC from the community—then price about $12 billion, marking the most important civil seizure and forfeiture within the DOJ’s historical past.
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