Secret Service Seizes $400M in Crypto, Builds One of World’s Largest Wallets

The US Secret Service has captured almost $ 400 million in digital assets in the last decade and accumulated one of the largest cold wallets crypto in the world, reported Bloomberg on Saturday and quoted people who introduced this matter.

The Global Inquiry Center of the Agency (GIOC) monitored funds through open source code tools, blockchain and patience analysis, Jamie Lam, American secret service analyst, allegedly said Criminal proceedings in Bermuda last month.

The crypto agency, most of which sits in a single cold storage wallet, is the result of a number of fraud investigations. The fraudsters attract a focus on the seemingly legitimate crypto of investment platforms into one typical scheme. The victims often see initial profits before the places disappear with their deposits.

“That’s what they do,” Lam said. “They’ll send you a photo of a really good looking guy or girl. But he’s probably an old guy in Russia.”

Related: Central Bank Services in Brazil Hackul, stolen $ 140 million

BLOCKCHAIN ​​TRAILS SMACK CRYPTO FRACKS

Lam’s team uses domain records, blockchain and VPN transactions to identify fraudsters. In one case, the cryptocurrency payment was led to another wallet. In another, a short VPN failure revealed the IP address and helped agents combine the digital fraud trail.

The secret service strategy is headed by Kali Smith, who manages a team that trained officials in more than 60 countries to unravel online financial crimes.

The agency focused on jurisdictions with weak supervision or programs selling to foreigners. “Sometime after just a week’s training, they may be like,” Masters, we didn’t even realize that this was happening in our country, “Smith said.

The secret service work has uncovered fraud from romantic investment systems to meetings. One investigation included a teenager Idaho who sent a naked photo online foreigners. Scammer earned $ 300 twice before the teenage went to the police.

Analysts watched payments through another forged teenager, who acted as a cash, leading to an account tied to transactions with nearly $ 4.1 million within the Nigerian passport. The British police arrested a suspicious extortion as he arrived in Guildford, England, where he remains in custody until the release.

Related: “Little option” 8.6 B Bitcoin Transfer was a hack

Crypto fraud of the highest loss

Crypto related fraud has become the best driver of US losses in Internet crime. In 2024, the Americans reported stolen crypto fraud of $ 9.3 billion, which is more than half of the $ 16.6 billion in total losses on the Internet crime this year, showing FBI data.

Meanwhile has the first half of 2025 have seen more than $ 2.47 billion at the loss of Because of hackers, fraud and exploitationrepresenting an almost 3% increase compared to theft of $ 2.4 billion in 2024.