The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed five civil forfeiture complaints seeking more than $25 million in cryptocurrencies allegedly linked to international investments, affairs and recovery scams targeting victims in Canada and the United States.
Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Secret Service Washington Field Office he said that the assets were recovered through separate investigations conducted by the Cybercrime Task Force. Investigators identified several money laundering networks and confirmed thousands of victims around the world who were misled into believing they were making legitimate investments in digital assets.
The action highlights the growing scale of cryptocurrency romance and investment scams, which often combine social engineering with fraudulent trading platforms and layered wallet transfers to hide stolen funds.
The largest complaint involves $12.1 million linked to romance schemes that defrauded more than 200 victims, with proceeds directed to intermediary addresses and mixed with other victims’ funds. Another is seeking $10.4 million linked to more than 270 transactions by suspected victims, while three smaller cases involved fraudulent investment accounts and an additional fraud involving the recovery of previously stolen funds.
The Justice Department found that the launderers were primarily located in Southeast Asia, with associated IP addresses located in China, Malaysia and Cambodia.
Cryptocurrency romance scams face global enforcement push
The complaints follow a recent operation coordinated by Interpol that targeted fraud using social engineering and financial networks used to launder proceeds. Operation First Light 2026 covered 97 countries and territories, resulted in 5,811 arrests and the seizure of illegal assets worth $283 million. Interpol said the operation identified more than 142,000 victims and blocked more than 31,000 bank accounts.
As part of the operation, Thai authorities discovered a network that allegedly converted proceeds from romance scams into cryptocurrencies and used cross-chain token swaps to cover their tracks. A wallet linked to one money laundering suspect processed more than $122.5 million worth of cryptocurrencies in 10 months.
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US authorities have also pursued crypto assets linked to similar schemes. In February, federal agents seized more than $61 million worth of USDT stablecoins from addresses allegedly used to launder proceeds from bogus investment platforms.
Investigators said the scammers first gained trust through romantic relationships, then directed them to fraudulent marketplaces and then moved their money through multiple wallets.
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