The DOJ said it has court approval to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of crypto stolen from Binance, out of more than $2.7 billion frozen so far.
Key Facts
The Justice Department said it has obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of crypto stolen from Binance.
US government and private sector efforts have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the stolen assets so far, the department said.
The DOJ also said it seized cloud infrastructure used in a deepfake video-call scheme the FBI calls FaceStealer, which it linked to more than $400 million in thefts.
The US Department of Justice said it has court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion worth of crypto stolen in the hack of Binance on or about Oct. 29, as part of efforts that have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the stolen assets so far.
Federal prosecutors and law enforcement worked with virtual asset service providers to interdict the funds, the department said in a Thursday announcement, adding that efforts to trace, freeze, seize and forfeit the stolen assets are ongoing.
The department's Criminal Division and its partners "played the critical role in immediately freezing billions of dollars' worth of stolen Binance digital assets before they got beyond law enforcement reach," Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in the DOJ's press release.
US government and private sector efforts have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the crypto stolen from Binance. Source: CoinMarketCap
Laundering Continues
The DOJ said the stolen assets are still being laundered through crypto bridges, mixers and exchanges. Last week, the FBI, the Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation issued a Cyber Alert urging virtual asset service providers to block transactions with addresses being used to launder the funds, it said.
The department put the theft at more than $6 billion. Binance said earlier this month that a fake job interview and an internal AI tool gave attackers their way in to the $6.34 billion hack.
Private firms have also frozen funds. Circle said it froze about $1.1 billion in USDC tied to the hack.
FaceStealer Takedown
In the same announcement, the DOJ announced the seizure of cloud-based infrastructure used in FaceStealer, a social engineering scheme that it said has led to the theft of more than $400 million in crypto over the last 18 months.
The scheme invites targets to video meetings from accounts stolen from earlier victims, then plays prerecorded video of previous victims the target knows, as well as AI-generated deepfakes of well-known figures in crypto, the DOJ said. A fake technical error then prompts the target to install a fix that is actually malware.
The FBI seized more than 900 webcam videos of victims under a federal warrant, and said the scheme increasingly targets people who maintain open-source software, according to the release.
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