U.S. federal prosecutors are seeking permanent forfeiture of assets seized in a crypto romance scam case after a retiree was persuaded to transfer more than $222,000 in USDT. Investigators said the money moved through multiple wallets and platforms before law enforcement intercepted the funds.
Prosecutors want seized crypto treated as wire fraud proceeds
Federal investigators traced the movement of the funds across several wallets and services, then obtained a federal warrant to search for and seize the assets. Court filings say the victim first moved money from a personal bank account into a Coinbase account and then sent it to wallets operated by the scammers. Prosecutors are now asking a federal judge to classify the seized assets as proceeds of wire fraud and authorize permanent forfeiture.
The court documents do not say whether the recovered funds will be returned to the victim. Prosecutors said that because perpetrators in these schemes are often based overseas, cases are commonly filed directly against the crypto assets themselves.
The scam used a false identity and long-term trust building
According to the filings, the fraud relied on a relationship built over time. The scammer used the name “Bella,” claimed to be a 23-year-old woman, and later offered to help the victim invest in cryptocurrency. Communication later moved to Telegram, where the contact took on a romantic element.
The documents also show that the victim was given step-by-step instructions on how to move money out of a bank account. The method depended on building trust over weeks or months and then steering the victim to a fake investment platform. No suspects have been publicly identified in the Florence case so far.
Cyvers and Chainalysis data show the scale of the threat
Blockchain security firm Cyvers said in data released in February 2025 that scams of this type caused $5.5 billion in losses in 2024. The company tracked 200,000 cases on Ethereum alone. Chainalysis said this scam model accounted for 33.2% of all crypto fraud revenue during the same period, while incoming funds to such schemes rose about 210% year over year.
Michael Pearl, Vice President of Strategy at Cyvers, called this the most significant threat facing crypto investors. He said direct attack incidents, while still severe, resulted in $2.3 billion in losses across 165 cases in 2024 and were smaller by comparison. FBI Special Agent Stacey Moy of the San Diego Field Office said the speed at which bad actors deploy broad fraud operations to deceive unsuspecting people is alarming.
Victims often lose a large share of their net worth
Cyvers reported that 75% of victims lost more than half of their net assets. In 35% of cases, the trust-building phase lasted one to two weeks, while some cases stretched to three months. The data also showed that men aged 30 to 49 were the most frequently targeted group.
The fund trail in this case shows that the fraud did not depend on exploiting a protocol flaw. It relied on social engineering, repeated contact, and carefully staged transfer instructions. By the time victims complete deposits and transfers, the assets may already have been routed across multiple addresses, making recovery harder.