Full Transcript of the Video:

Changing fast faster than we can keep up with and in the world of cybercrime everything is happening at record pace but criminals of course find a way so here they’re identifying their victims through social media through deceitful job advertisements as well as fraudulent investment opportunities so the unwitting victim the unwitting unprotected victim enters this brave new world in the hopes of making a profit and the criminal seizes the opportunity and takes advantage but the crime here involves an organized crime ring linked to an international human trafficking syndicate uh linked back to foreign actors in multiple compounds in Southeast Asia and as you can see from the chart over there which is not behind me but these are sophisticated bad actors who send stolen money through a variety of complex transactions and intermediary addresses between the initial victim deposit and along the blockchain to launder and obfuscate the source of the funds so the hopeful investor now enters the Wild West on an international scale where the crime is global where there are no borders and where the crypto criminals avoid the rules because this is an unregulated wild west but it’s not just an unregulated wild west it’s the wild north east and south and thank God now we have an administration that is taking it seriously and you may know that within the last 24 hours the Senate passed the bipartisan Genius Act Senate 1582 that implements common sense regulations in an effort to make America the crypto capital of the world and to protect victims so under my leadership with the support of President Trump and Attorney General Bondi the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia is going to be taking a leading role in the fight against crypto confidence scams and we are partnering with all our great law enforcement partners here and we’re going to seize and forfeit the uh stolen funds and rip them from the hands of those foreignbased criminals all with the eye of making the victim whole again and finally let me say the president has made it clear that crypto is not a get out of jail free card this could not have happened without the incredible efforts of the Secret Service the FBI the commune the computer crimes and intellectual property section of the Department of Justice we will continue to root out the bad actors and we will find those criminals who are taking advantage of unwitting victims who don’t know what they’re getting involved in and if you’re using the cryptocurrency market uh to steal we’re going to come after you we’re going to strip you of your illotten gains and you will be held accountable so now I’d like to call upon Matt Galiotti who’s the head of the criminal division in the main department of justice thank you yeah thank you United States Attorney Piro my name is Matthew Galiotti and I’m the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division which is over the computer crimes and intellectual property section today’s civil forfeiture complaint against over 225 million worth of cryptocurrency is the department’s latest action in our ongoing fight against cryptocurrency fraud schemes which the FBI estimates caused more than $9.3 billion in losses in 2024 alone 5.8 billion of that were from investment fraud schemes in the cryptocurrency space alone the criminal scheme alleging the complaint laundered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency taken by fraud and deceit from over 400 suspected victims who were misled to believe that they were making legitimate cryptocurrency investments these scammers tried to conceal their actions executing thousands of transactions across an extensive network of wallets and accounts to launder their ill-gotten gains this is not the first action we’ve taken to hold cryptocurrency scammers to account and it will not be the last it harms.

American victims and undermines faith in the cryptocurrency ecosystem just last week the department announced the guilty pleas of five men who laundered over $36 million from a victim of cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes that operated out of Cambodia these defendants face maximum penalties of between 5 and 20 years in prison and last month a federal district court here in DC ordered the forfeit of approximately 2.5 million worth of cryptocurrency associated with one of these schemes and we also announced the seizure of eight more than $800,000 worth of cryptocurrency from scammers in that case now you’ve just heard from United States Attorney Pirro about why today’s announcement matters and how you can protect yourself from falling victim to these schemes but a couple of points bear emphasizing the impact of the of the schemes on their victims can be devastating both financially and personally and this is complicated and compounded many times over by the sheer scale and complexity of these schemes of the uh $9.3 billion dollars in losses individuals over the age of 60 were the most affected with roughly 2.8 billion in losses to put it plainly the defendants or the the scammers in this case are just con artists everybody must protect themselves by educating themselves before considering an investment involving cryptocurrency read the FBI’s web page about cryptocurrency investment fraud and check to see if you see any of the red flags identified there for example if an unknown individual contacts you do not release any financial or personally identifiable information and do not send any money verify the validity of any investment opportunity from strangers or long-lost contacts on social media websites if an investment opportunity sounds too good to be true it probably is there are additional red flags on the FBI’s page and I encourage the public to review them carefully today.

I’m here to underscore the department’s commitment to protecting the American public from these transnational criminal organizations and to securing justice for American victims and beyond you are not alone our skilled investigators and prosecutors are working relentlessly to identify and to hold account those who seek to profit from harming our citizens we will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that these crimes do not pay and to bring these perpetrators to justice many thanks to our prosecutors from CSIPS the US attorney’s office and our law enforcement partners who will speak uh momentarily and with that I’d like to call up Mr Bradstreet thank you Mr gali my name is Sean Bradsh and I’m the special agent in charge with the Secret Service at the San Francisco Field Office in November of 2023 the San Francisco field office initiated an investigation into the cryptocurrency accounts suspected of laundering funds from victims of cryptocurrency investment scams also known as pig butchering during this investigation the United States Secret Service investigators identified more than 225 million in stolen funds linked to over 400 suspect victims once identified these victims were voluntarily frozen by cryptocurrency provider Tether while the investigation continued today as a result of the seizure executed by the FBI these funds were transferred by Tether to the United States government and eventually as much of these victims or much of these funds as possible re will be returned to the victims it’s worth noting that today’s actions is the largest cryptocurrency seizure in Secret Service history this seizure is the result of incredible investigative work and exemplifies that victims coming forward matters as an example in February of 2024 a dozen Secret Service analysts and investigators across the country traveled to San Francisco for a 4-day operation that we often refer to as the big trace sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners and with various cryptocurrency exchangers our personnel analyze victim complaints and diligently back trace tens of thousands of transactions to proactively identify as many victims as possible if you believe you are a victim of pig butchering scams please contact the Internet Crimes Complaint Center within the last few years the United States Secret Service has seen a major uptick in these types of scams to date the Secret Service has frozen or seized more than 1 billion of pig butchering scams the agent has also linked to dismantled more than 5,000 domains linked to pig butchering since 2003 in closing I want to thank US Pro and her team for the steadfast support I want to thank the FBI San Francisco office as well as our private industry partners for their assistance during this operation. Finally, I want to recognize the the efforts of the San Francisco field office specifically financial analyst Andrew Frey and the team for their countless hours and hard work and dedication on this case they were absolutely amazing through this whole time now.

I’ll turn it over to FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Augustine Lopez good morning the FBI’s San Francisco office opened a parallel investigation into this fraud scheme with the Secret Service in March of last year as detailed in the complaint the FBI and Secret Service investigators identified cryptocurrency addresses that were part of a complex blockchain money laundering network these addresses held more than $225 million in illicit cryptocurrency proceeds through advanced blockchain analysis and other investigative techniques the FBI and Secret Service agents traced those funds to schemes that defrauded hundreds of victims many of whom believe they were making legitimate investments in cryptocurrency today’s announcement represents a critical step in our ongoing effort to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal networks exploiting cryptocurrency to defraud innocent people today’s cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes are not just financial crimes they cause devastating and long lasting consequences for victims far beyond financial losses many of these scams are calculated sustained and emotionally manipulative often involving scammers who pose as trusted romantic partners or business advisers thanks to the tireless and innovative work of the investigators from both the FBI uh San Francisco and the Secret Service millions of dollars have been recovered and now one step closer to being returned to victims this case is a powerful example of what can be achieved through inter agency collaboration and persistence in the face of highly sophisticated crossborder financial crimes we the FBI also want to recognize the vital role played by our private sector partners including blockchain analytics firms and cryptocurrency platforms who provided key intelligence and assistance in this investigation these partnerships are essential to keeping peace keeping pace with criminals who exploit emerging technologies for profit the private sector is on the front lines with us and their cooperation is indispensable the FBI will continue to aggressively pursue those who prey on others through deception and greed no matter how complex or hidden their schemes may be we remain fully committed to working alongside our federal partners international counterparts and the private sector to protect the public and hold cyber criminals accountable wherever they operate lastly we urge anyone who may be a victim of this fraud scheme to report immediately to the FBI at 1800 call FBI thank you and I’ll turn it back over to the US attorney thank you all right as I’m sure you could tell from the discussion by the stakeholders this is a very complicated scenario uh and what we have here uh are some diagrams that are I think um they look like a Google map uh in terms of trying to track money along the blockchain and it is a very difficult kind of investigation that we’re dealing with here so uh if you have any questions we’re happy to answer them do you know what pig butchering is apparently you do yes sir u yeah one one on topic and one off topic question if you Why off topic this is fascinating because so much is going on in the world on topic I mean you’re you’re talking about this as a as a part of a crackdown on crypto scams and we’ve seen the sitting president really embrace cryptocurrency in some cases promoting a coin in his own name a meme coin rewarding top purchasers of that with dinners and towards the White House even um what what what if any scrutiny do you expect to apply to any kinds of those deals um and then for an off-topic question um I’m probably not gonna take the off-topic so don’t worry about it well let me let me answer your first question look um the president wants to make America the crypto capital of the of the world and what we’re trying to do here consistent with the bill that was passed yesterday where the genius bill of Senator Heged’s bill is is to create a stable coin and to create some kind of uh stable currency within the United States for crypto our job right now is dealing with people who are being scammed out of their life savings we’ve got well over 434 more victims this is the largest crypto scam ever uh you can see the age groups of the people involved in this you’ve got people between the ages of 40 and 49 who don’t understand crypto or investing and people who are over 50 uh who get caught up and this ends up being an economic homicide for people that old because they cannot go out into the workforce and make up the money that they’ve lost and the problem is and you’ve heard the the stakeholders behind me talk about this is people are embarrassed to talk about it they’re embarrassed to say that it happened to them and that they were gullible and so they’re not reporting it our job today and my message today and the message of the administration is that we are going to send a message to all those criminals whether they’re in the United States or whether they’re in Southeast Asia at the very least we’re going to freeze the money we’re going to try to give it back to the victims and we’re going to follow and create a a a regulatory scheme of some sort so it’s not the wild west anymore and north and east and south where you know you don’t get away with crypto crime uh it’s not a get out of jail free cart we are now this this sophisticated group with me here and I have to tell you my hat goes off to them i mean this is an incredibly intense and difficult investigation and we’re here for the victims no anybody else do you really know what pig butchering is no what’s pig butchering thank you pig butchering is where it is a direct trans translation from Chinese I understand and it’s where you fatten up the victim the pig before the slaughter the analogy is very clear they go as far as they can to get as much money as they think they can and they’re actually issuing like monthly statements saying “Hey your crypto’s gone up you know you’re making a lot of money here.” And these people don’t know they don’t understand and it is a crazy blockchain you know when you on some of these wallets you have no idea where they are so that’s about I can actually tell you how you spell it in Chinese but I can’t say it did Did everyone who was the 34 victims did they all get all their money back or No we’re we’re in the process of of trying to assess you know how much money we can actually get all right and this is the beginning of the investigation and you know it may seem like it’s been a long time since we started this but this is going to be a very long process um we’ve got to be able to um you know the blockchain is anonymous so even though we see the transactions occurring and we see the money moving we don’t have always the ability to identify by name those who control uh the cryptocurrency wallets and if that made sense to you you’re a smarter man than I am no anyone else you want to say anything I want to introduce you to the members of my staff tell them Keith Kevin Rosenberg and Rick Bllelock these guys are phenomenal phenomenal did you want to say anything no josh are you sure rick do you want to say something you said it best no I didn’t but thank you thank you all for being here and no thank you we’re going to keep working hard we’re going to send a message we’re going to go after these people. Thank you.

How to Contact U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro

Jeanine Pirro currently serves as the interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. If you wish to contact her in her official capacity, here are the most direct and reliable methods:

Official Phone Number

• Call the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia at:
  (202) 252-7566

Official Mailing Address

• Address correspondence to:

text

Jeanine Pirro

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia

601 D Street NW

Washington, DC 20530

(Note: Some third-party sources suggest sending mail to The White House, but the most appropriate and direct address is the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C.)

Email Contact

• There is no direct public email for Jeanine Pirro as U.S. Attorney. For official matters, use the general contact form or email provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C., accessible via the Department of Justice website.

Social Media

• Jeanine Pirro maintains a public presence on X (formerly Twitter): [@JudgeJeanine].However, for official legal matters, use the office contact details above.

Summary Table

For official business, always use the U.S. Attorney’s Office contact information. For general inquiries or public comments, some sources list comments@whitehouse.gov, but this is not specific to her office and may not be the most effective channel.

What is the web site address and contact form for the U.S. Attorney office?

Website Address and Contact Form for the U.S. Attorney’s Office

Website Address:
The official website for the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia is:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc

Contact Information:

• Phone:(202) 252-7566

Contact Form:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia does not have a dedicated online contact form on their website. For general inquiries, you can use the phone number above or refer to the contact information provided on their official site.

For additional information about other U.S. Attorney’s Offices, you can visit the main Department of Justice U.S. Attorneys’ page:
https://www.justice.gov/usao

If you need to reach out in writing, the mailing address is typically found on the office’s website or can be requested by phone.

https://www.facebook.com/usaodc/

How can I access the contact form for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in DC

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia does not have a dedicated online contact form for public inquiries. Instead, you can contact them through the following methods:

• Main Phone Line:(202) 252-7566
• Postal Mail:
  United States Attorney’s Office
  601 D Street, NW
  Washington, DC 20579

For general electronic messages to U.S. Attorneys’ offices, you can use the Department of Justice’s general contact page, but messages are routed to the appropriate office or component as needed—not directly to the DC office.

Official contact page:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/contact