Coinbase’s investigative team collaborated with the US Secret Service to seize $225 million in Tether (USDT) connected to an international pig butchering scam network. The joint operation identified over 130 victims across multiple jurisdictions suffering collective losses of $2.3 million, with illicit funds traced to 140 accounts on cryptocurrency exchange OKX.
Tether executed immediate compliance measures, freezing 39 wallet addresses containing the identified $225 million in USDT. The stablecoin issuer subsequently performed a token burn to permanently remove these assets from circulation, preventing further criminal use.
This case aligns with intensified global crypto crime enforcement efforts, including recent actions such as the Australian Federal Police’s seizure of $2.6 million in Bitcoin and German authorities confiscating €34 million in cryptocurrency through coordinated international operations.
Coinbase and Tether’s collaboration sets a critical industry precedent in leveraging blockchain analytics and cross-exchange coordination to combat financial crime. The operation demonstrates how cryptocurrency tracing capabilities and interagency cooperation can effectively target sophisticated scam networks and asset recovery.
The successful seizure underscores the necessity of sustained regulatory collaboration and information sharing between exchanges to address evolving cryptocurrency-related fraud, with pig butchering scams representing a growing threat requiring specialized investigative approaches.