DOJ Recovers $40K in Crypto from Trump-Vance Scam

By: Eva Baxter

In a significant development, US federal prosecutors have successfully seized $40,000 in cryptocurrency from an elaborate scam targeting supporters of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. The details were revealed in a recent complaint filed by US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, underscoring the ongoing vulnerabilities within digital communication platforms.

The scam, which unfolded on December 24, 2024, involved an email purportedly from Steve Witkoff, co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. The deceptive tactic involved the slight alteration of the email domain to '@t47lnaugural.com', which cleverly replaced a lowercase 'l' with an 'i' to mislead recipients. This manipulation led a donor to inadvertently send $250,300 worth of USDt—a stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain—into the hands of the scammers.

The FBI, with the assistance of advanced blockchain analytics tools, traced the stolen cryptocurrency, facilitating the recovery of over $40,000. A critical contributor to this effort was Tether, which enabled the maneuverability of funds, demonstrating the collaborative potential within the crypto ecosystem to combat fraud and crypto-related financial crimes.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) praised the collaboration between governmental agencies and the private sector, emphasizing the need for continued vigilance in online spaces fraught with risks. [Learn more about Ethereum blockchain](https://ethereum.org) and its functionalities, which often serve as a critical backdrop for such incidents.