Trump inaugural impersonators scammed donors out of crypto, feds say

A recent complaint filed by U.S. authorities reveals a shocking scheme where scammers impersonated the Trump and Vance Inaugural Committee, resulting in the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency. According to the legal documents submitted on Wednesday, these criminals exploited fake email addresses designed to mimic official committee communications to deceive unsuspecting victims into donating funds. The fraudulent emails, crafted to appear as if they originated from the committee, used a misleading address ending in "@t47lnaugural.com" instead of the legitimate "@t47inaugural.com." This clever ruse led victims to mistakenly send over 250,300 USDT stablecoin, equivalent to approximately $250,300, to the scammers. The complaint highlights that these deceptive messages, sent in December, falsely claimed to be from Steve Witkoff, a co-chair of the inaugural committee. The filing states, "The victim believed they were contributing a donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee through a false email address." In response to the crime, the U.S. government is pursuing the permanent seizure of nearly 40,400 USDT, aiming to both punish the offenders and recover assets for victim compensation. Notably, about half of the stolen USDT was traced back to a Binance account registered to Ehiremen Aigbokhan in Nigeria. The complaint indicates that shortly after the cryptocurrency was transferred, a significant portion of it—215,000 USDT—was rapidly moved to various other addresses. Thankfully, Binance cooperated with authorities by providing transaction records and agreeing to a freeze request on the account.