Nigerian Scammer Steals $250,000 in USDT Using Fake Trump Inaugural Email

A Nigerian national allegedly posed as a top official from the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, using a lookalike email to steal $250,000 in Ethereum-based USDT. The scammer sent an email on December 24, 2024, from "@t47lnaugural.com," replacing the lowercase "i" in the legitimate "@t47inaugural.com" with a lowercase "l" that appeared nearly identical depending on the font used. The victim, convinced the message was legitimate, transferred 250,300 USDT.ETH to a crypto wallet controlled by the scammer on December 26. The FBI successfully traced the blockchain transactions and recovered 40,300 USDT.ETH of the stolen funds, which are now subject to civil forfeiture proceedings to compensate the victim.

Tether, the issuer of stablecoin USDT, assisted authorities in freezing the stolen crypto, similar to its role in a separate case last month, when the company helped facilitate the seizure of $225 million in USDT linked to large-scale “pig butchering” investment scams, following a joint investigation by the DOJ, Secret Service, and crypto exchange OKX.

Saravanan Pandian, CEO and Founder of crypto exchange KoinBX, described the scheme as "a whole new minefield” where bad actors exploit political figures and real-world events to deceive victims. He noted that "it's purely opportunism that takes undue advantage of public trust, political sentiment, and the irreversible nature of crypto all at once."

The fraud capitalized on the Trump administration's embrace of crypto donations, which experts call “more clever than sophisticated.” Chengyi Ong, Head of APAC Policy at Chainalysis, warned that AI and deepfake technology will “amplify the scale and sophistication of scam activity,” adding that effective prevention will require a “cross-sectoral approach” across law enforcement, regulators, tech companies, financial institutions, and the crypto industry.

Karan Pujara, founder of security analyst firm Scam Buzzer, said the incident exposes fundamental security gaps among crypto donors. "Since the early days of the internet, phishing has remained the oldest trick in the book, and users are still falling for it, whether in crypto, online shopping, or banking," Pujara said. "If you look closely at all sorts of crypto and online scams, scammers often trick human minds by triggering fear, greed, and FOMO rather than hacking systems."

Pujara noted that with AI, the speed, execution, and scale to replicate crypto scams are multifold, as automated bots can monitor high-balance wallets and execute poisoned address transactions instantly. While many blame crypto itself, Pujara pointed out that old-school tools, such as suspicious links and spoofed domains, are still the backbone of most scams. “In legacy tech like domain URLs and VOIP, where KYC is tough, scammers have been exploiting these weaknesses for over 25 years to execute data breaches, crypto scams, and even traditional finance fraud,” he said.