Federal prosecutors in Albany are chasing more than $12 million USDT, They say it It was You are bound by crypto investment scams. They filed a civil forfeiture complaint in an attempt to retrieve the funds. This is another signal that authorities are dealing with crypto fraud like any other financial crime.

How the scam was unfolded

The scheme began with random text messages that promised profitable investment opportunities. These messages led victims to a fake trading platform called ShakePayex. That’s what the site was like I made it In It looks like It’s a real Canadian crypto exchange, but that wasn’t the case. Those who deposited their funds were hit with fake fees and obstacles when they tried to withdraw. Many people were told to deposit more before they could get their money back. Overall, more than $10 million has been released from unsuspecting users.

us DOJ moves to recover $12 million in USDT related to crypto fraud. Citizens’ forfeitures have become “one of the most important tools in cryptographic investigations” to collect funds and disrupt illegal activities.

– CryptoNews (@BTC_AF) September 10, 2025

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Cases for confiscation of citizens

The government uses citizen confiscation to recover stolen codes. This approach allows for the seizing of suspected crime-bound assets without a criminal conviction. It has become a reliable way to deal with crypto fraud cases. The idea is simple. They freeze the assets before they disappear and try to return them to their legitimate ownership.

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Part of a larger pattern

This is not the first time the Department of Justice has taken this route. Earlier this year, it filed a similar lawsuit, including $225 million in USDT in connection with pig slaughter fraud. It was the biggest USDT attack on record. In that case, law enforcement worked with Tether and blockchain analysts to track and freeze the funds. The same kind of teamwork is unfolding here again.

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Confiscation of citizens for the victims

Citizens’ confiscation was primarily seen as a way for criminals to block the use of stolen money. It is now becoming a way to give victims a path to recovery. By quickly identifying and freezing suspicious wallets, staff can prevent stolen funds from being moved through the mixer or cashed out. If the court approves the forfeiture, those funds can ultimately be returned to those who lost them.

What’s coming next

The next step is for the court to determine whether the seized funds are clearly linked to illegal activities. If so, the government can take legal ownership of the property. It would open the door for victim compensation. The case also prepares for a wider effort to make the crypto market safer. Prosecutors want that strong Enforcement, combined with faster collaboration between platforms, prevents future fraud from becoming this big.

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An independent investigation commissioned by Input Output found no evidence to support accusations of fraud or misconduct in Cardano’s decade-old ADA Voucher Program, according to a forensic report released on.

The review, conducted jointly by law firm McDermott Will & Emery and accounting firm BDO, examined public claims that insiders misused ADA, manipulated blockchain upgrades to block redemptions, or improperly diverted unredeemed tokens.

The 150-page report, dated Sept. 2, 2025, concluded the allegations “do not have any basis.”

Redemption efforts and findings

Investigators reviewed tens of thousands of documents, carried out blockchain and forensic analyses, and interviewed 18 people ranging from former employees to voucher holders.

Their findings showed that 14,282 vouchers, representing 99.7% of all ADA sold in the program, were successfully redeemed through a mix of on-chain redemptions and a follow-up recovery initiative.

Contrary to claims that elderly investors were disproportionately targeted, only 6.1% of vouchers were sold to people over 65. Of those, just 14 vouchers remain unredeemed.

The report said the program included safeguards to prevent misrepresentation, and distributors who broke rules were suspended. When Cardano’s Byron-era redemption process ended in 2017, 390 vouchers, worth 318 million ADA, remained unclaimed.

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Input Output launched a “Post-Sweep Redemption Project” that deployed consultants and private investigators to track down voucher holders. That effort raised the overall redemption rate to near totality.

Use of unredeemed funds

The report also addressed concerns about unredeemed ADA. In 2023, 68.25 million tokens judged unlikely to be redeemed were transferred to Cardano Development Holdings, a Cayman-based foundation overseen by the nonprofit Intersect.

Those funds supported ecosystem growth through continuity contracts, grants, and community projects. Intersect was formed in July 2023 by Input Output and EMURGO, which each pledged $500,000 annually to the group’s operating budget.

The report said much of the transferred ADA went toward contracts with Input Output Infrastructure, which in turn paid subcontractors under strict monitoring procedures.

The findings mark the strongest rebuttal to long-running social media accusations that Cardano insiders enriched themselves at the expense of early investors. Input Output said it released the full report to “ensure transparency” and encouraged community members to review it.

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Saifedean Ammous—best known in the Bitcoin community as the author of The Bitcoin Standard—has attacked Argentine President Javier Milei’s stabilization program as a bond-fueled “fiat fraud,” arguing that the policy mix flatters official statistics while deepening the country’s dependence on multilateral lenders and peso-denominated carry trades.

In a lengthy X post on August 20, Ammous framed last week’s bond rollover as a reality check: “Argentina’s Javier Milei regime tried to roll over bonds by offering investors an insane 69% interest rate, and only succeeded in rolling over 61% of them. Even a 69% annual interest rate isn’t enough to tempt investors to risk lending to the Milei ponzi.” He punctuated the thread with a line he says Milei himself used after a memecoin debacle: “No Crying in the Casino!”

Bitcoin Vs. Fiat: Milei Picks His Side

Ammous’ critique is explicitly Bitcoin-versus-fiat. He claims the administration “reneged on [its] campaign promise to shut down the central bank,” chose to expand money-supply measures instead of “stop[ping] creating money,” and raised taxes while seeking an IMF rescue—moves he calls “the same old fiat banksterism.” The Bitcoin author’s monetary prescription is unambiguous: “After almost two years in office, it would have been absolutely trivial for Milei to bring price inflation down to close to zero with the one simple trick… stop creating money.” In Ammous’ telling, anything short of extinguishing discretionary money creation cannot be sold to Bitcoiners as sound policy.

On debt and multilateral financing, Ammous alleges that the latest arrangements amount to record-breaking exposure to official creditors and a mortgaging of future fiscal space. “With this new $20b in IMF loans, Argentina now has the highest outstanding debt to the IMF in IMF history… borrowing is now at 1,352% of its IMF quota,” he writes, adding that the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank “also” committed roughly $12 billion and $10 billion, respectively, bringing “a total of $42 billion borrowed from international institutions.” He characterizes the show of support, celebrated by local officials, as a pyrrhic victory for fiat: “Point 5 is not a win, it is an L.”

The Bitcoin-versus-fiat framing extends to prices, exchange rates, and data quality. Ammous argues that government statistics understate the erosion of purchasing power, but says even the official numbers are damning. “After year-on-year price inflation rates rose to almost 300% in the first few months of his presidency, it has declined to the 30–40% range in recent months, and the cumulative price inflation since Milei has taken office is 155%,” he writes. He underscores pressure on the peso by citing both the black-market and official rates: “The black market peso exchange rate has dropped 30% against the dollar in just 21 months… The official rate… has dropped by around 70%, from 400 pesos per dollar to 1,300 pesos per dollar. Just in the last month of July, both rates dropped around 13%.”

Bitcoin Doesn’t Default—Fiat Always Does

Ammous, speaking from a hard-money and Bitcoin perspective, insists that free markets cannot coexist with monetary discretion: “All talk of a free market is empty rhetoric as long as the government manipulates the money.” He links this to the high-yield peso bond complex—what he dubs a “shitcoin casino”—arguing that “the central bank is imposing an interest rate of 65%, making speculation on the government’s bonds the only possibly profitable industry.” In Bitcoin circles, that argument resonates with a longstanding critique: fiat incentives manufacture yield-chasing behavior that collapses when confidence wobbles, while Bitcoin’s fixed issuance schedule avoids that cycle by design.

His post also alleges problematic asset management and bank risk. “Milei shipped off the little that remained of Argentina’s once significant gold reserves to London in search for a quick yield buck,” Ammous claims, before warning that new regulations could again funnel household savings into sovereign risk: “Milei and Caputo are currently trying to force the banks to buy more government bonds, yet again using the savings of Argentinians to prop up the government’s unsustainable debt… bringing back painful memories of the Corralón of 2001.” The Bitcoin author’s broader contention is that fiat systems externalize crisis risk onto depositors and domestic savers, while Bitcoin self-custody avoids those channels.

The administration’s supporters—some of them Bitcoiners—push back. Fernando Nikolić, founder of Perception responded point-by-point that “inflation has dramatically declined,” “GDP growth is projected at 5.5%,” “currency controls were successfully eliminated without crisis,” and “the budget achieved [a] historic surplus.” He framed the outcome as proof that markets and institutions “rewarded Milei’s more gradual approach,” even if it falls short of an immediate central-bank shutdown favored by Austrian economists and many Bitcoin advocates. Ammous dismissed the rebuttal: “You either didn’t read what I wrote or you’re incapable of comprehending what you read… Point 5 is not a win, it is an L. Muted for wasting my time with stupidity.”

Beyond the clash of tone, the substantive disagreement is philosophical and monetary. Ammous’ benchmark is Bitcoin-standard discipline: close the central bank, anchor money supply, let relative prices reset, and rebuild on hard money—painful initially, in his view, but durable.

The government’s approach is classic fiat stabilization: disinflate with tight policy, widen financing buffers with IMF/WB/IDB lines, normalize the FX regime, and nurse domestic markets back to depth—politically survivable if growth returns, but reliant on confidence, rollover capacity, and high local-currency rates that Bitcoiners see as the hallmark of fiat fragility.

For now, both narratives point to the same hinge variables: peso rollover capacity at “insane” yields, the pace of disinflation, the behavior of parallel exchange rates, and whether multilateral support remains politically and financially sustainable. If those levers tighten simultaneously, Bitcoin’s critique will look prescient; if they hold, the case for a fiat stabilization hardens. In Ammous’ words, however, Bitcoin is the only durable exit: “It would have been absolutely trivial… stop creating money.”

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $113,612.

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Tens of thousands of Americans are staring at the possibility of fraud after thieves stole their information from a healthcare firm.

In a notice to the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the Arkansas-based Highlands Oncology Group says 113,575 Americans are impacted by a massive cybersecurity incident.

In a data incident notice posted on its website, Highlands says that an unauthorized entity gained access to its systems and stole files that may include patients’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license/state identification numbers, passport numbers, credit/debit card numbers, financial account numbers, medical treatment records, medical record numbers, patient account numbers,  and/or health insurance policy records.

“Highlands Oncology Group PA recently discovered a data incident that may have involved the personal information for certain individuals. On June 2, 2025, Highlands discovered it was the victim of a cyber-attack, and certain Highlands files and systems were inaccessible…

The forensic investigation determined that an unauthorized third party accessed Highlands’ computer network at times between January 21, 2025, and June 2, 2025, and encrypted some of its files. The investigation also determined that the third party may have accessed and acquired certain files from Highlands’ systems during this period.”

Highlands offers a full spectrum of cancer care services, including chemotherapy, radiation oncology, surgical oncology, as well as supportive services like rehabilitation, massage, lymphedema therapy, genetic counseling and pharmacy.

The firm says it has sent letters of notification to affected individuals, while offering complimentary identity theft protection services for those whose Social Security numbers, driver’s license or state ID numbers were involved in the incident.

Highlands is encouraging patients to stay vigilant by reviewing their account statements and reporting any suspicious activity that could suggest fraud or identity theft.

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A multi-state, multi-million dollar investigation dubbed Operation Teller-to-Telegram just concluded with the arrest of several individuals who allegedly engaged in a bank fraud scheme that targeted the elderly.

In a statement, the office of the Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier says that eight individuals behind an $8.8 million bank fraud ring are now facing RICO charges, criminal use of personal information and other serious felonies. 

The fraud operation involved three bank employees in Maryland, identified as Barbara Frazee, Camala Shafer, and Antonio Penn, who allegedly sold and shared the account information of senior customers using the encrypted mobile messaging app Telegram.

The other perpetrators used the victims’ names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and bank account information to drain savings, then transferred the stolen funds to accounts that they opened.

Says Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd,

“This wasn’t some small-time scam, this was a well-organized fraud ring stealing millions from innocent victims across the country. They thought they could hide behind mobile apps and fake accounts, but we found them, and we’ll continue to go after anyone who targets hardworking people’s life savings. Racketeering is a serious crime, and we will pursue as many felonies as possible against each one of these suspects.”

Frazee, Shafer and Penn are now facing charges along with their alleged co-conspirators: Okeroghene Akushe, Michael Nevarez, Roshado Durrant, Hassan Phillips and Kevin Clayton.

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Scammers are reportedly posing as bank fraud investigators to steal money from unsuspecting victims.

According to WPLG Local 10, the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) in Florida has issued a warning about the scheme and is urging the public to be vigilant amid rising cases of bank-related phone scams.

WPLG reports that the BSO Pompano Beach District has already received more than a dozen complaints from residents who were tricked into handing out thousands of dollars to the scammers.

Deputies say that one victim lost $15,000 to the scheme. A couple was also tricked into giving up their debit cards and personal identification numbers (PINs), resulting in more than $9,000 in fraudulent charges.

The bad actors typically contact their prospective victims, pretending to work for the fraud department of the victim’s bank.

The scammers then claim there are suspicious activities on the victim’s account that require immediate action to protect the funds. They then tell the victims to withdraw large sums of money or hand over their debit cards and PINs.

In some cases, the scammer arranges for an Uber to pick up the money or the debit card, instructing the victim to place the envelope containing these items in the backseat and not speak to the driver.

The police say that legitimate banks will not tell their clients to withdraw money and send it through a ride-share service, nor will they ask to hand over debit cards and PINs to a third party.

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