US Attorney's Office Recovers $600K in Crypto Fraud Scheme Targeting Ledger Wallet Owners

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut has recovered and forfeited implicit $600,000 worthy of cryptocurrency from a fraud scheme, the latest successful a bid of palmy integer plus seizures by national instrumentality enforcement.

According to a Department of Justice property release, the seizure took spot aft a Ledger hardware wallet idiosyncratic was targeted by a phishing scam successful September 2025.

The user, a Connecticut resident, received a missive purporting to beryllium from “Ledger Security & Compliance,” instructing them to execute a mandatory information check. In fact, pursuing the instructions successful the missive enabled the fraudsters to compromise the user's hardware wallet, making disconnected with $234,000 successful cryptocurrency.

The FBI and authorities constabulary traced the travel of funds, enabling them to prehend immoderate $600,000 successful the USDT stablecoin which was taxable to a civilian forfeiture ailment alleging that it was the proceeds of ligament fraud and wealth laundering.

Decrypt reached retired to Ledger for remark connected the lawsuit but did not instantly person a response.

This is the latest successful a bid of phishing incidents targeting crypto hardware wallet users, with a modus operandi akin to that seen successful a recently identified campaign leveraging fake postal letters. In that case, carnal letters were sent to Trezor and Ledger owners that included institution logos and holograms, alongside a QR codification directing victims to the phishing site.

At the time, cybercrime advisor David Sehyeon Baek told Decrypt that scammers’ displacement from integer to carnal message “borrows credibility” from the postal system. “A missive with your sanction and location code fundamentally signals, 'we tin find you,' and that triggers a overmuch stronger information reaction,” helium explained.

The run follows years of information breaches astatine hardware wallet manufacturers, including a 2020 e-commerce breach astatine Ledger exposing implicit 1 cardinal emails and a January 2026 breach astatine its e-commerce spouse affecting bid data.

Rival hardware wallet shaper Trezor has likewise had user information exposed done incidents specified arsenic the 2022 MailChimp insider exploit and a aboriginal third-party enactment portal breach affecting astir 66,000 users, triggering ongoing phishing campaigns. Decrypt has reached retired to Ledger for remark and volition update this nonfiction should they respond.

Federal and planetary authorities person seized important cryptocurrency amounts successful caller months. The Feds sought forfeiture of $200,000 successful USDT tied to a Tinder "pig butchering" scam, portion Florida seized $1.5 million successful Dogecoin, Pepe, and Solana tokens successful a lawsuit involving a Chinese national.