On October 14, 2025, the U.S. government announced it had seized $15 billion worth of Bitcoin. According to documents filed in federal court, the Bitcoin was generated by running an enormous Cambodia-based pig butchering operation:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Justice Department’s National Security Division also filed today a civil forfeiture complaint against approximately 127,271 Bitcoin, currently worth approximately $15 billion, that are proceeds and instrumentalities of the defendant’s fraud and money laundering schemes, and were previously stored in unhosted cryptocurrency wallets whose private keys the defendant had in his possession. Those funds (the Defendant Cryptocurrency) are presently in the custody of the U.S. government. The complaint is the largest forfeiture action in the history of the Department of Justice.
Romance scams, work-from-home scams, fake “investment clubs,” and similar cons—known as pig butchering—are estimated to have cost victims upwards of $75 billion in the last four years.
Today’s seizure is extremely welcome news to people who have lost money to this kind of fraud.
To have a shot at recovering what you’ve lost, you will likely need to prove your lost funds are in that $15 billion reservoir and then fight for it.
We’ve got decades of courtroom experience and have been helping victims of crypto scams for almost as long as pig butchering has plagued consumers.
Review our qualifications here and then contact us.