An online crook deceived a supporter of Trump on more than $ 250,000 in cryptocurrency, pretending to be part of the president’s inaugural committee in 2025, federal officials presumed this week.
At the end of December, fraudsters sent emails “claiming to be Steve Witkoff”, then co-president of the committee, requesting more than $ 250,000 in the USDT.ETH cryptocurrency, prosecutors, prosecutors presumed in a complaint from the Federal Court.
The victim paid the funds, and the crypto was quickly distributed through “many other cryptocurrency addresses”, including a Binance account based in Nigeria linked to the name of Ehiremen Aigbokhan, according to legal documents.
“All donors should double and triple check that they send a cryptocurrency to their planned beneficiary,” said Washington US Jeanine Pirro lawyer said in a declaration. “It can be extremely difficult for the police to recover lost funds due to the extremely complex nature of the blockchain.”
Binance and Tether, the companies and the currencies associated with the alleged scam, respected FBI requests later this month to freeze the accounts containing some of the stolen funds, and the federal prosecutors seek to seize about $ 40,000 in crypto on two accounts that have not been removed.
The authorities allege that the money was won by fraud by wire and money laundering.
The independent contacted an email that officials said that with Aigbokhan to comment.
Federal officials said the program was an example of a “compromise scam by business mail” and that the fraudster made subtle adjustments in the domain names of the emails, by replacing a “L” in tiny with a “i” in capital letters to seem associated with official email addresses @ t47lnaugural.com.
Trump and Witkoff, now a special envoy from the Middle East for the Administration, are associated with a variety of legitimate crypto efforts, including World Liberty Financial, which they launched with their sons last year.
