Federal officials said they have recovered nearly $3 million stolen from victims of a phone scam.
United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut Vanessa Roberts Avery said the department, along with the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, investigated and that led to the forfeiture of approximately 151 Bitcoins, as well as other digital assets.
In October 2020, people overseas started targeting vulnerable victims, including first-generation U.S. citizens and elderly persons, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The victims received phone calls from people pretending to be members of U.S. law enforcement agencies who told victims that their identity had been compromised. After gaining trust, they asked the victims to transfer money for “safekeeping” and promised the victims their money, plus interest, when the perpetrators of the nonexistent identity fraud were captured, federal officials said.
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The people carrying out the scheme instead moved the money through multiple bank accounts and converted the money into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, federal officials said.
Investigators traced the victims’ money to a digital wallet and the U.S. Attorney’s Office used the civil asset forfeiture procedure because they said the digital assets constituted the proceeds of wire fraud.
The people behind the scam remain at large, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, but civil asset forfeiture allowed the government to recover the victims’ money while the investigation is ongoing.
Local
This the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals Service are investigating.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office urges people seeking to confirm they have been contacted by an actual government employee to call the local division of the government entity and ask to be connected directly with the officer or agent they were contacted by.
Victims of this scam are encouraged to file a report with their local law enforcement agency and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at ic3.gov.
