Legal action has been initiated by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts to retrieve cryptocurrency linked to a scheme called Operation Hog Slaughter, which victimized a Massachusetts resident and 36 others. Filed on March 13, a civil forfeiture lawsuit aims to recover $2.3 million in various cryptocurrencies, such as USD Coin, Tether, Ethereum, and SOL, which were obtained through online scams and frauds.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit represents a legal procedure where law enforcement seizes assets suspected of involvement in illegal activities. In this context, the assets, including nearly 300,000 USDC, 1.5 million USDT, 102,000 Tron, 3,000 SOL, and 14,000 Cardano, were seized from two Binance accounts in January. These actions were taken following an investigation into a scam operation targeting Massachusetts residents last spring, known as "hog slaughter."
Pig slaughtering is a fraudulent technique used by scammers to gain trust and persuade victims to invest in cryptocurrency schemes. However, victims eventually realize they've been deceived. U.S. regulators have issued warnings about such tactics and taken legal actions against perpetrators.
The investigation into the "hog slaughter" scam commenced in spring 2023, revealing that cryptocurrency had been seized from funds linked to 37 victims, including individuals from Massachusetts. Victims were deceived into sending $400,000 to the scammers, who then transferred the funds to other wallets connected to the funds of 36 additional victims.
This legal action by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts follows recent news from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, which seized $1.4 million in USDT from an unmanaged virtual cryptocurrency wallet in connection with an alleged tech support scam aimed at seniors. Tether cooperated voluntarily in the asset recovery process, redistributing funds associated with the alleged fraudsters to alternative wallets under government supervision to compensate victims. Additionally, regulatory bodies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have issued warnings about pig slaughter tactics used to defraud investors.
