Cryptocurrency fraudster tricked the US government into transferring him $ 55,000 in cryptocurrency

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lost $ 55,000 in cryptocurrency due to its own inattention — DEA representatives sent funds to a wallet whose address had been changed by an attacker.

In May 2023, the DEA seized more than $ 500,000 in Tether USD (USDT) from two Binance accounts and placed it in controlled accounts. At the same time, the attacker was monitoring the regulator’s online activity and noticed that the DEA had sent a test amount of $ 45.36 to one of the wallets of the US Department of Justice’s Marshal Service.

The fraudster created a cryptocurrency wallet whose address corresponded to the first five and last four characters of the Marshals Service wallet and made a reverse transaction allegedly on behalf of the agency. The attacker hoped that the agency would copy the wrong wallet address when sending the full amount, which eventually happened, and the fraudster received $ 55,000.

As a result, the DEA, having discovered the mistake, applied to Tether to block the funds so that the criminal could not withdraw the cryptocurrency, but the funds had already been converted.

In 2022, $ 11.5 billion in cryptocurrencies was lost due to hacking and fraud. The share of bitcoin in illegal cryptocurrency transactions has significantly decreased due to the emergence of many other networks.