US federal agents in North Carolina seized more than $61 million worth of USDt linked to a massive “pig butchering” crypto-investment scam that preyed on victims through fake online relationships and bogus trading platforms.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina in Raleigh on Tuesday, the fraudsters followed by as romantic partners and claimed to have special trade skills.
They then directed their victims to convincing but fake crypto sites that displayed fictitious investment portfolios showing unusually high returns, enticing them to invest more, before the scammers withheld their withdrawals and demanded additional fees when victims tried to withdraw their money.
Homeland Security Investigations investigators traced the victims’ funds to multiple wallets used to launder the money before identifying several addresses that still contained substantial amounts, which were later seized and forfeited.
Prosecutors noted that Tether cooperated with the investigation: “The Department of Justice and HSI recognize Tether for its assistance in transferring these assets,” the release said, citing the latest example of stablecoin issuers working with authorities to freeze and recover funds through U.S. dollar-pegged tokens like Tether’s USDt (USDT).
Crypto fraud scams are on the rise.
The latest case comes at a time of explosive growth in crypto fraud, including pig-killing schemes that combine romance scams with fake trading opportunities.
Data from Chainalysis’ 2026 Crypto Scams report shows that crypto scam losses will reach $17 billion in 2025, with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered impersonation and social engineering scams growing 1,400% year-over-year and becoming as profitable or more profitable than traditional schemes.
Related: How Pig Butchering Crypto Scams Turn Trust into a Financial Weapon
In one incident in December 2025, a Bitcoin investor said he lost his retirement savings after being framed by an online “trader” who used AI-generated images and a fictitious persona to instill confidence before convincing him to transfer his coins to a fake investment platform.
U.S. prosecutors have begun securing larger sentences against the perpetrators of these networks.
In February, a key figure in a crypto-laundering operation linked to the killing of pigs was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for more than $70 million, reflecting how seriously courts are now treating this category of crime.
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