Secret Service Amasses $400M Crypto Cache in Decade-Long Crackdown

The U.S. Secret Service has quietly consolidated nearly $400 million in seized cryptocurrency over the past ten years through its Global Investigative Operations Center. Investigators employed blockchain analytics, open-source tools, and scammers' operational mistakes to track illicit funds across multiple fraud schemes.

Romance-investment scams proved particularly vulnerable to detection. Fraudsters typically allowed small balance increases to build trust before freezing withdrawals and disappearing—a pattern that repeatedly led agents to a single cold-storage wallet. One $4.1 million seizure was traced to a Nigerian passport holder after a VPN misstep exposed an IP address.

The agency now collaborates with 60 nations and major exchanges to combat rug pulls and phishing scams. This coordinated effort signals growing institutional sophistication in tracking crypto-based crime, though the decentralized nature of digital assets continues to present challenges.