Exchange says its blockchain sleuthing mapped 130 victim wallets and guided agents to a historic “pig-butchering” bust from 18 June forfeiture.
Coinbase has gone public with its behind-the-scenes work on the U.S. Secret Service’s $225.3 million USDT seizure, providing a fresh layer of detail that was absent when the forfeiture was first announced a week ago.
In a blog post dated 24 June, the exchange wrote that Coinbase’s threat-intelligence team “worked shoulder-to-shoulder” with agents for four months, tracing outbound transfers from 130 customer accounts whose owners lost a combined $2.3 million to an Asia-based “pig-butchering” scam ring.
Those breadcrumbs ultimately pointed investigators to 39 USDT wallets that Tether froze on 20 November 2023. These wallets still held virtually the entire haul when the Secret Service moved to seize the funds on 18 June.
The newly revealed investigative timeline re-casts last week’s press release from the Secret Service as the culmination of a collaborative, tech-heavy hunt rather than a stand-alone enforcement win.
The original 18 June announcement branded the operation the agency’s largest crypto seizure to date. Yet it offered little insight into the analytic work that located the tokens, an omission Coinbase’s disclosure now fills.
According to the unsealed civil forfeiture complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, scammers lured more than 400 victims, many of them U.S. residents, onto fraudulent trading apps before draining their balances.
Investigators say part of the ring was staffed by workers trafficked to compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, echoing warnings from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime about the region’s burgeoning scam factories.
What’s next?
The USDT remains in a Secret Service-controlled address until a judge signs off on forfeiture. Tether has pledged to burn the frozen tokens and re-mint an equivalent amount under government control, mirroring its 2022 protocol. Victims can then seek restitution through the Justice Department’s remission process, which historically takes 12 to 24 months.
The FBI’s latest Internet Crime Report tallied $5.8 billion in ‘pig butchering’ losses for 2024. However, figures support losses up to $9.8 billion across all crypto scams. Agents say the Coinbase-assisted bust proves that on-chain transparency can dismantle even cross-border rings, provided exchanges are willing to share their data.
Authorities have asked additional victims to file complaints via the IC3 portal, citing reference code BT06182025. They also hinted at upcoming arrests, pending identification of suspects who tried to off-ramp funds through Asian exchanges.
Meanwhile, Coinbase is using the moment to press its regulatory case in Washington, arguing that “clear federal rules” would encourage more compliant exchanges and stings like this one.
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