US Drug Enforcement Agency Loses $55,000 in Seized Tether to Scammer's Address Poisoning Scheme
Summary:
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lost $55,000 in seized Tether (USDT) to a scam artist who tricked them into sending the funds to the wrong address. The scammer used a tactic called "address poisoning" to set up a fake wallet and then converted the funds to Ether and Bitcoin. The DEA, along with the FBI, is investigating the incident to identify the perpetrator.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States, responsible for enforcing the country's drug laws, reportedly lost $55,000 in confiscated Tether (USDT) earlier this year due to a scam artist, as per a report by Forbes on August 24. The agency had seized over $500,000 worth of USDT from two suspicious Binance accounts involved in money laundering related to drug sales, as part of a long-term investigation. The funds were stored securely in DEA-controlled Trezor crypto wallets. During the forfeiture process, the DEA sent a small test amount of USDT to the U.S. Marshals Service. However, a clever scammer intercepted the transaction and used a tactic known as "address poisoning" to set up a fake crypto wallet with a similar address. The scammer then tricked the DEA into accidentally sending the funds to the wrong address. By the time the Marshals Service noticed the error and informed the DEA to freeze the funds, it was too late. The USDT had already been converted to Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) and moved to different crypto wallets. The DEA, in collaboration with the FBI, is currently investigating the incident to identify the perpetrator. They have only discovered two Binance accounts that paid for the attacker's wallet gas fees, both of which were associated with Gmail email addresses. The hope is that Google may possess information that could help identify the owner of those accounts. The DEA has not yet provided a comment regarding the incident.
Published At
8/25/2023 1:30:00 AM
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