Illinois Woman Gets Most of Her Stolen Crypto Back

Federal law enforcement agents have managed to take back as much as $24K from crypto scammers who had allegedly stolen the money from a resident of the Metro East area of Illinois. At the time of writing, no criminal evidence has been made public, and the agents have not made any arrests.

Illinois Woman Is 75 Percent Victorious

Crypto scams have become rather prominent in recent years, and with time, they just get bigger and bigger. Court records regarding the present case suggest the victimized woman contacted the O’Fallon Police Department in June of last year to say that she had been scammed by alleged crypto fraudsters who took a huge chunk of her money.

Prior to losing the funds, the woman had spoken via Twitter with what appeared to be a crypto influencer. Little did she know that this was, in fact, a scammer who was only impersonating the influencer, and the real person had no hand in what went down. The criminal told the woman that she should deposit as much as $32,000 in BTC into a trading account via the platform 3Twarriorstrading.com. She did so, and by the time she realized what was happening, she had already lost quite a bit of money.

At the time of writing, about three quarters of the stolen funds have been recovered. They will be returned to the victim in due time via a remission compensatory process. Stephen S. Webster – who heads the U.S. Secret Service Office in Springfield, Illinois – commented on the case, saying:

Unfortunately, new technology has made it easier for individuals abroad to take advantage of innocent victims throughout the United States. The U.S. Secret Service worked quickly with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Illinois and O’Fallon Police Department to seize this cryptocurrency and prevent it from lining the pockets of criminals overseas.

Residents of Illinois are not the only people vulnerable, and these kinds of scams are happening all over the world (and in greater numbers). Often, they take on the form of romance scams, in which people looking for love online are targeted by cyberthieves who talk to them, get to know them, and eventually earn their trust.

This Just Keeps Happening!

Over time, they convince them of a grand (and new) digital currency investing opportunity, and say they’d be fools to skip it or miss out. The people then begin depositing funds into platforms that are hosted or run by larger rings of scammers. From there, they witness returns, though these numbers are often not real, and when they try to make withdrawals, that’s when things go haywire.

They often learn too late that they cannot take the money out unless they pay heavy fees or invest more money.

Tags: Crypto Scam, Federal Agents, Illinois