A Nigerian national allegedly impersonated a Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee official to defraud a donor of $250,000 in cryptocurrency, U.S. prosecutors announced.
The scammer pretended to be Steve Witkoff, co-chair of the committee, sending an email from a domain nearly identical to the official one but with a subtle letter substitution. The victim, believing the message was authentic, transferred 250,300 USDT stablecoins on the Ethereum blockchain to the scammer’s crypto wallet in late December 2024.
The FBI traced the blockchain transactions and recovered 40,300 USDT, which are now under civil forfeiture to compensate the victim. Tether, the issuer of USDT, assisted authorities in freezing the stolen funds, similar to its role in a separate recent $225 million crypto scam seizure.
Industry experts see this case as part of a growing threat landscape where scammers exploit political events and public trust to target cryptocurrency donors. Saravanan Pandian, CEO of KoinBX, called it “a whole new minefield” highlighting opportunistic attacks leveraging political sentiment and the irreversible nature of crypto transactions.
Chengyi Ong of Chainalysis noted the fraud took advantage of political support for crypto donations, making such requests seem plausible. He warned that AI and deepfake technology will increase scam sophistication and scale, calling for a cross-sector effort involving law enforcement, regulators, tech firms, financial institutions, and the crypto community to combat these threats.
Karan Pujara, founder of Scam Buzzer, underscored that phishing remains a primary tactic, preying on emotions like fear and greed rather than exploiting technical vulnerabilities. He highlighted that AI can amplify fraud speed and reach through automated monitoring and targeted transactions.
Despite the rise of new technologies, Pujara emphasized that traditional attack methods—such as spoofed domains and suspicious links—continue to underpin most crypto scams, exploiting long-standing weaknesses in internet and telecom systems.