The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lost $55,000 in USDT stablecoin as a result of "address poisoning". It is reported by Forbes.
In May, following a three-year investigation, the agency seized more than $500,000 in stablecoins from two Binance accounts that were suspected of laundering money from the sale of banned substances.
According to a search warrant seen by journalists, the funds were placed in DEA-controlled Trezor crypto wallets. As part of the confiscation procedure, the DEA sent a test amount of 45.36 USDT to the address of the US Marshals Service.
The attacker subsequently discovered the transaction and quickly created a wallet with the same first five and last four characters of the receiving account.
After that, the scammer sent a small amount of tokens to the DEA address to show up in the list of recent transactions. Apparently, an inattentive employee of the Office sent funds to a fake wallet on the next transfer.
Later, when the marshals noticed the mistake, they asked Tether to freeze the assets. However, the attacker has already managed to convert them into Bitcoin and Ethereum, and then transferred them to another wallet.
The DEA has turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help, but so far has not been able to identify the perpetrator. All that was found were two Binance accounts that paid the gas fee for the scam wallet. Gmail email addresses were used to register accounts.
Recall that Dune analysts called the US government “one of the largest bitcoin whales.” According to their estimates, the authorities have a total supply of the first cryptocurrency at 205,515 BTC (~$5.8 billion).
In March 2023, the United States sold 9,861 BTC for $215 million confiscated from the Silk Road darknet marketplace. In July, another 9824 BTC (~$300 million at that time) came into motion.
In May, following a three-year investigation, the agency seized more than $500,000 in stablecoins from two Binance accounts that were suspected of laundering money from the sale of banned substances.
According to a search warrant seen by journalists, the funds were placed in DEA-controlled Trezor crypto wallets. As part of the confiscation procedure, the DEA sent a test amount of 45.36 USDT to the address of the US Marshals Service.
The attacker subsequently discovered the transaction and quickly created a wallet with the same first five and last four characters of the receiving account.
After that, the scammer sent a small amount of tokens to the DEA address to show up in the list of recent transactions. Apparently, an inattentive employee of the Office sent funds to a fake wallet on the next transfer.
Later, when the marshals noticed the mistake, they asked Tether to freeze the assets. However, the attacker has already managed to convert them into Bitcoin and Ethereum, and then transferred them to another wallet.
The DEA has turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for help, but so far has not been able to identify the perpetrator. All that was found were two Binance accounts that paid the gas fee for the scam wallet. Gmail email addresses were used to register accounts.
Recall that Dune analysts called the US government “one of the largest bitcoin whales.” According to their estimates, the authorities have a total supply of the first cryptocurrency at 205,515 BTC (~$5.8 billion).
In March 2023, the United States sold 9,861 BTC for $215 million confiscated from the Silk Road darknet marketplace. In July, another 9824 BTC (~$300 million at that time) came into motion.
