The US Secret Service has amassed a nearly $400 million crypto war chest over the past decade through fraud investigations.
"Pig butchering" romance-investment scams are the biggest source of these seized funds for the Secret Service.
Collaborations with industry players like Tether and Coinbase were a big part of the Secret Service's record-breaking $225 million crypto seizure.
Despite enforcement successes, crypto fraud losses are still rising, with billions stolen in the first half of 2025 alone.
The US Secret Service is best known for guarding presidents. Yet over the last 10 years, it has quietly become one of the world’s biggest crypto custodians.
Investigators have seized almost $400 million in digital assets during fraud probes and have parked most of the haul in a single cold‑storage wallet that now rivals institutional treasuries.
Here’s how the Secret Service accumulated such a large stash of Bitcoin.
The agency’s Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) has been the biggest driver of this success, according to Bloomberg.
The agency’s analysts have followed criminal money trails during the last 10 years with open‑source intelligence, blockchain explorers and the occasional slip‑up when a scammer forgets to turn on a VPN.
According to Bloomberg, under attorney Kali Smith, the Secret Service has trained officials in more than 60 countries, with priority on jurisdictions with lax oversight or “golden-visa” programs that attract bad actors.
So far, the program has already exposed cross‑border criminal rings operating from Europe to West Africa.
Reportedly, romance‑investment scams remain the top pipeline into the agency’s cold wallet.
This kind of scam is more commonly known as Pig Butchering, and a typical incident starts with a scammer creating a fake dating profile with the identity of a conventionally attractive person.
They then build a rapport with their victims and eventually send invitations to trading sites while giving them a few early “profits” to hook them.
Soon after this, the platform vanishes with investor funds and victims realize that they have been scammed.
In one case, Lam’s team followed thousands of micro‑transactions from an Idaho teen who was sexually extorted and eventually found an account tied to a Nigerian passport worth $4.1 million.
The Secret Service’s partnerships with industry heavyweights have made most of these crypto recoveries possible.
For example, agents recently traced an enormous romance‑scam network this spring.
During the investigation, Tether froze addresses while Coinbase provided forensic support.
Recent seizure of more than $225 million in crypto | Source: Twitter
The operation ended in a $225.3 million crypto seizure, which is the largest in Secret Service history.
While the enforcement wins have grabbed headlines, they barely dent the real problem.
According to insights from the FBI, Americans lost $9.3 billion to crypto fraud in 2024, which is more than half of all internet‑crime losses that year.
Fresh data from security firm CertiK shows that worldwide hacks, phishing attacks and wallet breaches drained $2.47 billion in just the first half of this year.
Billions stolen in H1 | Source: Twitter
Two incidents alone, including the $1.5 billion Bybit exploit and a $220 million attack on Cetus Protocol accounted for almost three‑quarters of those losses.
Overall, it is important to note that Crypto scams thrive because they scale cheaply.
They also cross borders effortlessly and prey on human trust. The Secret Service story proves the blockchain’s transparency cuts both ways.
Every bad actor leaves breadcrumbs and with the right mix of training, those crumbs always lead straight back to the thief’s door.
In all, $400 million in seizures pales next to the billions still flowing to criminals each year.
Until users adopt stronger self‑custody habits and regulators close some of their jurisdictional loopholes, the GIOC’s cold wallet will keep growing.
So far, this may be the clearest measure of how far the industry still has to go to protect itself.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.