A Nigerian con man reportedly seduced donors of Crypto’s $250,000 by impersonating Trump Vance’s first committee member and misusing barely noticeable typos.
The con man pretended to be Steve Witkoff, the co-chair of Trump Vance’s first committee, sent an email to the victims on December 24, 2024 via “@t47lnaugural.com”, replacing the legitimate “I” with “T47Inugural.com.”
Convinced that the message was legal, the victim closed 250,300 USDT.ETH for $1 Stablecoin Published on the Ethereum blockchain Crypto Wallet Controlled by a scammer on December 26th, statement By the US Lawyer’s Office for the District of Columbia.
The FBI was successfully traced Blockchain 40,300 USDT.ETH of the transactions and stolen funds recovered are currently subject to civil forfeiture procedures to compensate the victim.
Tether, Stubcoin issuer USDTaid agencies that freeze stolen codes, similar to their role in another case that the company supported last month. Promotes $225 million seizures at USDT After a joint investigation by DOJ, Secret Service and Crypto Exchange OKX, it is linked to a massive “Pig Butchering” investment scam.
Saravanan Pandian, CEO and founder of Crypto Exchange Koinbx, described the scheme as a “a whole new minefield,” explaining it as a bad actor misusing politicians and real-world events to deceive victims.
He said Decryption “It’s purely opportunism that over-benefits the public’s trust, political sentiment, and the irreversible nature of code at once.”
The scam took advantage of the Trump administration’s crypto donation embrace. This is what experts call “clearer than refined.”
“As political winds change in favour of crypto, the demand for crypto donations becomes more reasonable,” said Chengyi Ong, APAC policy director at Chain Olysis. Decryption. “However, it is important to recognize that this type of fraud relies on railroads. The revenue could have been transferred equally in Fiat currency through payment apps or bank transfers.”
Ong warned that AI and DeepFake technology “amplifies the scale and refinement of fraudulent activities,” adding that effective prevention requires a “intersectoral approach” across law enforcement, regulators, technology companies, financial institutions and the crypto industry.
Karan Pujara, founder of security analytics firm fraud buzzer, said the incident exposes a fundamental security gap among crypto providers.
“From the early days of the internet, phishing has been the oldest trick in books, and users are still falling into it, including crypto, online shopping, banking,” Pujara said. Decryption. “If you look closely at all kinds of cryptography and online fraud, scammers deceive the human mind by causing fear, greed and FOMO, not systems.”
“Replicating crypto fraud at AI, speed, execution and scale is multifaceted,” he said. It said that the automatic bot can monitor high-balanced wallets and execute toxic address transactions immediately.
While many have denounced the cryptography itself, Pujara noted that old-fashioned tools such as suspicious links and spoofed domains are still the backbone of most scams.
“In technology like KYC’s strict legacy technology, domain URLs and VoIP, fraudsters have used these weaknesses for over 25 years to carry out data breaches, crypto frauds and even traditional financial fraud,” he said.
edit Sebastian Sinclair
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