The Department of Justice of Delaware has recently frozen accounts belonging to entities involved in ‘pig butchering’ crypto scams. As per the official statement, enforcement authorities have tracked down around 23 entities. Notably, the DoJ’s Investor Protection Unit has issued a summary order to cease and desist against them.
Attorney General Kathy Jennings stressed the importance of protecting investors from online scammers. Furthermore, she revealed that funds of the perpetrators have been frozen. Elaborating on the same, she said,
“Protecting investors from online scammers is extremely important. When victims lose money through cryptocurrency scams, including the pig butchering scam, it can be difficult to recover those funds.”
She added,
“Today’s order takes a first step toward protecting Delaware investors from the pig butchering scam by freezing funds at risk from further transfer by the wrongdoers.”
Simply put, the order prohibits the persons and entities associated with the wallets from withdrawing or moving assets owned by the complainants. Retrospectively, this prevents the exchanges HODLing the wallets from permitting parties to move the deceitfully-obtained crypto.
Decrypting other details of the Crypto Scam
Pig butchering scams are a typical spin-off of the usual romance scams. Basically, victims of this kind of scam are groomed over time to make investments using crypto, only to find that what they thought was a safe investment was a scam. Bogus platforms look authentic and make the victims believe their investments will fetch them high returns. Scammers usually flatten victims before absconding with their assets.
Delawareans who were contacted online by unknown persons who urged them to purchase crypto for investments filed complaints with the Investor Protection Unit. Post purchasing some crypto and seeing large returns on their initial investments, the victims were encouraged to invest more. However, they could never withdraw the funds and their crypto eventually disappeared. The released statement further revealed,
“It is estimated that this international scam involves thousands of victims across the country with losses into the billions of dollars.“