RICO crypto fraud investigation leads to twelve more arrests

• 12 have been charged with cryptocurrency theft
• The group is reportedly responsible for over $263 million worth of theft
• The organisation used social engineering tactics to steal the funds

The Department of Justice today has revealed that 12 people have been charged in a RICO case which involves the theft of over $263 million, as well as money laundering, home break-ins, and wire-fraud, the US attorney’s office has confirmed.

A mix of Americans and foreign nationals are accused of “participating in a cyber-enabled racketeering conspiracy throughout the United States and abroad that netted them more than $263 million.”

The group, who reportedly met on an online dating platform, had various roles in the organization, like database hackers, money launderers, and burglars who targeted hardware virtual currency wallets. The hackers would focus on websites and servers, obtaining cryptocurrency-related databases.

Social engineering attacks

From there, the organizers and target identifiers ‘organized and collated information across the databases to determine the most valuable targets’. The group would cold-call victims and use social engineering tactics to convince them that their accounts had fallen victim to cyberattacks, and that they needed to recover or secure their accounts - encouraging them to hand over credentials.

“According to the indictment, members of the enterprise laundered stolen cryptocurrency proceeds by moving the funds through various mixers and exchanges using “peel chains,” pass-through wallets, and virtual private networks to mask their true identities,“ the Department of Justice confirmed.

In just the first three months of 2025, over $1.5 billion of crypto was lost to theft or scams, with an over 300% increase in money lost in Q1. The median loss per incident was $9,549,339, and just 0.4% of stolen funds were returned to victims, research from CertiK confirms.

Much of this was thanks to one large incident, with hackers sealing over $1 billion in one of the biggest crypto thefts ever, against cryptocurrency exchange platform Bybit - measuring up as the largest heist in crypto history.

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