The FBI and the Royal Thai Police have uncovered a "pig butchering" scheme in which US victims were defrauded of over $2.5 million dollars in Tether (USDT).
A recent court case revealed that two Binance accounts received 2,546,415 USDT after multiple steps to launder the funds.
Pig butchering is a modern variation of an old scam in which criminals build romantic or business relationships to convince victims to deposit cryptoassets into offshore accounts, ultimately stealing the funds.
According to the information criminals have used complex transactions on and off the chain to disguise the origin of the funds.
The FBI and Royal Thai Police then traced the funds back to the victims, resulting in a court order to freeze and seize the amounts.
Neither Tether nor Binance were implicated in any wrongdoing.
Victims often believe they are helping with travel or medical expenses, and are shown fake account statements to continue pouring money in.
The Block reports that the Banana Gun team is currently investigating reports of a user wallet breach and has temporarily shut down the platform.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has initiated legal action against Rari Capital, a decentralized finance platform, and its founders.
Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius serving a 100-year prison sentence, is seeking the testimony of six ex-employees as part of his criminal case.
Since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009, it initially struggled to gain recognition as a groundbreaking technology, often being dismissed as a scam or fraud.