Trump inaugural impersonators scammed donors out of crypto, feds say

Scammers impersonating the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee fraudulently stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to a complaint

The perpetrators used phony addresses made to look they belonged to the inaugural committee to " trick or coerce victims into viding them money," according to the filing

Of the stolen funds, the U

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesScammers impersonating the President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance Inaugural Committee fraudulently stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to a new complaint filed by federal secutors

The perpetrators used phony addresses made to look they belonged to the inaugural committee to " trick or coerce victims into viding them money," according to the civil complaint filed Wednesday in U

District Court in Washington, D

Using addresses that end in "@t47lnaugural

Com" with a lowercase "l" as opposed to "@t47inaugural

Com" with a lowercase "i," the scammers duped victims into sending them more than 250,300 in USDT stablecoin, or $250,300

Court Watch first reported the filing Thursday

The s sent in December claimed to be from Steve Witkoff, then the co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee

Read more CNBC newsApple scores big victory with 'F1,' but AI is still a major blem in CupertinoCoreWeave is the first cloud vider to deploy Nvidia's AI chipsIPO market gets boost from Circle's 500% surge, sparking optimism that drought may be endingApple's China iPhone sales grows for the first time in two years"The victim believed they were contributing a donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee through a false address," the filing reads

Of the stolen funds, the U

Government is seeking to permanently seize nearly 40,400 USDT "to punish and deter criminal activity by depriving criminals of perty used in or acquired through illegal activities" and "to recover assets that may be used to compensate victims. " half of the USDT was recovered from a Binance account in the name of Ehiremen Aigbokhan, with an address in Nigeria, per the complaint

Within 24 hours of the victim transferring the cryptocurrency, 215,000 in USDT was transferred "to numerous other cryptocurrency addresses," according to the filing

Binance vided records and voluntarily complied with a freeze request, according to the filing.