A scammer allegedly tricked the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) into sending them $55,000 worth of crypto.
According to a new report from Forbes, the DEA sent a test transfer worth $45.36 worth of Tether (USDT) to the US Marshals Service after seizing more than $500,000 worth of stablecoin from two Binance accounts suspected of laundering drug money.
However, a scammer noticed the test transaction and created a crypto wallet with the same first five and last four characters as the address of the US Marshals. The bad actor then placed a token in the DEA wallet, and the DEA sent that scam wallet for over $55,000 USDT, falsely believing the similar address belonged to the Marshals.
The DEA and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been monitoring the stolen funds, which have been converted into Ethereum (ETH) and transferred to another wallet, according to Forbes. The FBI has already filed a warrant and is leading the investigation.
Digital asset scams, which typically raise the most money among crypto crimes, saw a 77% drop in revenue in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year, according to a recent report from blockchain data platform Chainalysis.
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Generated image: Midjourney