Published on: January 18, 2025
New York is freezing more than $2.2 million in cryptocurrency that was stolen as the result of a remote job scam. It is an unprecedented move spearheaded by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed a lawsuit to seize and redistribute the stolen funds back to scam victims around New York.
The scammers sent out fake job offers via text, offering lucrative pay for a position as an online product reviewer. They’d have the victims create cryptocurrency reviews and explain that they were meant to generate market data.
“The victims were assured that they were not purchasing the products but that the account balances would help “legitimize” the data they were generating and that they would get their original payment back plus commission,” the New York State Attorney said in a recent press release.
The crooks created an enticing and realistic-looking job opportunity, with one catch.
In order to get paid, victims needed to create accounts on several legitimate cryptocurrency platforms, like Coinbase, and hold an amount equal to or greater than the value of the coin they were reviewing. In other words, it’s like saying in order to get paid for reviewing a car, you need to give your boss cash equal to the value of the car.
The scammers would claim that in return for sending them the crypto, they would receive their initial investment plus a commission.
Finally, they would require victims to give them their cryptocurrency wallets, so they could receive compensation.
The scheme preys on people looking for remote jobs. In one instance, a man lost $100,000 after scammers “hired” him onto a fake website and took time to train him, help him open cryptocurrency accounts, and then had him send money and create fake reviews for several crypto coins.
Fortunately, a lot of the stolen funds can be recovered.
“During the course of its investigation, OAG secured Tether Limited’s voluntary agreement and cooperation to freeze the stolen USDT, and the Queens County District Attorney’s Office secured a search warrant to freeze USDC stolen in the scam.
Because the cryptocurrency has been frozen, it is available to be recovered and returned to the scammers’ victims under court approval.