The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced the successful seizure of assets in a major transnational cryptocurrency scam, totaling up to $225.3 million, making it one of the largest "pig butchering" scam cases in U.S. history. The scam network was based in the Greater Manila area of the Philippines, with at least 400 victims. The involved bank, Heartland Tri-State Bank, went bankrupt, and a bank president was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
According to the U.S. investigation, this scam gang primarily targeted elderly people, singles, and those lacking financial knowledge in Europe and America, establishing trust by posing as lovers or "investment mentors" on social media, and inducing them to invest in crypto assets on fake platforms. The scammers used forged profit records and the illusion of successful withdrawals to continuously lure victims into investing more, eventually shutting down the platform, leaving victims with both financial and personal losses.
The scam center of this case was located in Parañaque City, Philippines, where several apartments and office buildings were used as scam "parks". The operation members came from China, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other places, transferring the scam proceeds through cryptocurrencies like USDT frequently, using techniques like wallet hopping and mixers to obscure the flow of funds, showing professional technical methods.
The U.S. law enforcement agencies found that the gang controlled seven major cryptocurrency wallet clusters, with a financial chain spanning multiple countries, and cooperated with trading platforms OKX and Tether to successfully freeze key accounts. Victims are spread across the U.S., including retirement funds, church organizations, small town farmers, and more, severely impacting the community economy.
The most sensational part of the case involved the president of Heartland Tri-State Bank in a small town in Kansas, Shan Hanes, who was deceived by the scam group, misappropriated $47 million of the bank's funds for investments, leading to the bank's bankruptcy and his own 24-year prison sentence.
The Department of Justice stated that the recovered $225.3 million will be prioritized for compensating the victims, with the remaining funds proposed to establish a national cryptocurrency emergency fund. The FBI pointed out that the total losses in the U.S. due to similar "pig butchering" crypto scams in 2024 are expected to reach $5.8 billion, setting a new record and presenting a very severe situation.
