55,000 USD in Crypto Stolen From The U.S. DEA
Scammer tricks DEA, steals $55,000 in digital money; FBI investigates.
A scammer tricked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) into sending them $55,000 in cryptocurrency.
The DEA took more than $500,000 of Tether (USDT) cryptocurrency from accounts they thought were used for illegal activities. They tried to send a small amount, $45.36, to the U.S. Marshals to test. But a scammer saw this and made a fake digital wallet address that looked like the Marshals'. The DEA sent $55,000 to this fake address by mistake.
The FBI is now investigating this mistake. They saw the stolen money changed into another cryptocurrency called Ethereum and moved to another account.
Crypto scams have dropped by 77% in the first half of 2023 compared to last year, says a report from Chainalysis.
