The US Secret Service crypto cold wallet has grown to one of the world’s largest, now holding nearly $400 million in seized digital assets. According to Bloomberg, the funds were collected over the past ten years from scam investigations involving fake investment platforms and romance frauds.
Most of the seized assets are stored in a single cold-storage wallet managed by the Secret Service. The agency’s Global Investigative Operations Center (GIOC) led the work using blockchain analysis, open-source data, and slow, methodical tracking. Jamie Lam, an investigative analyst with the Secret Service, discussed these efforts during a closed session in Bermuda last month.
Scams often followed the same pattern. Victims would see fake profits from a platform, then lose all their funds when the site disappeared.
“That’s how they do it,”
Lam said.
“They’ll send you a photo of a really good-looking guy or girl. But it’s probably some old guy in Russia.”
VPN Failures and Blockchain Analysis Help Trace Crypto Scams
The Secret Service used blockchain analysis and digital footprints to follow scammers. Sometimes, they tracked one wallet to another. In other cases, small mistakes revealed much more. A VPN crypto investigation exposed one suspect’s IP address when the VPN disconnected. That helped identify the person behind the wallet.
Jamie Lam Secret Service and his team also worked with domain records and chat logs to locate key fraud networks. These methods uncovered scammers involved in romance schemes, sextortion, and investment fraud.
In one case, a teenager in Idaho was blackmailed after sending a nude photo. The scammer took $600 in two payments. Investigators followed the funds to another teenager used as a money mule. That trail led to an account linked to $4.1 million under a Nigerian passport. The suspect was arrested in Guildford, England and is waiting for extradition.
Kali Smith Secret Service Leads Global Crypto Training Effort
Kali Smith Secret Service heads the agency’s global crypto crime strategy. Her team has trained investigators in over 60 countries. These programs focus on countries with loose oversight and policies that sell residency to foreign nationals.
Smith said some officials were surprised after the training.
“Sometimes after just a week-long training, they can be like, ‘Wow, we didn’t even realize that this is occurring in our country,’”
she said.
The team targets locations where scam operations move funds through people, exchanges, and shell accounts. Several trainings led to local governments launching new enforcement efforts. Smith’s strategy connects foreign law enforcement to US crypto fraud investigations using shared tools and data.
Crypto Fraud Losses in the US Reach $9.3B in 2024
Crypto scams remain the biggest cause of internet fraud losses in the United States. According to FBI data, Americans lost $9.3 billion to crypto fraud in 2024, making up more than half of the total $16.6 billion in reported internet crime that year.
In the first six months of 2025, scams, hacks, and exploits caused $2.47 billion in losses, showing a slight increase from $2.4 billion in 2024.
Investigators often rely on help from industry players to recover stolen funds. Both Coinbase and Tether confirmed their role in major recoveries. They used analytics to trace funds and freeze suspect wallets. One such case led to a $225 million recovery in USDT, which was linked to romance scams.
Secret Service Crypto Seizures Built Through Scam Probes and Global Cooperation
Over the years, the $400M crypto seizure resulted from consistent scam investigations, technical tracing, and coordinated efforts with other agencies. As a result, the Secret Service crypto cold wallet now stores digital assets from various cases involving blackmail, fraud, and international financial crimes.
To trace these scams, investigators followed several digital clues. They examined wallet addresses, tracked blockchain movements, and reviewed IP logs. In many cases, VPN failures revealed critical information. Because of these slip-ups, the agency was able to follow funds back to offshore scam networks. These networks often used money mules, fake websites, and social media accounts to move and hide stolen crypto.
Meanwhile, the Jamie Lam Secret Service team applied a slow, step-by-step method to investigate these crimes. Through this careful process, they identified connections between wallets and suspects. As a result of these efforts, the agency’s crypto cold wallet has become one of the largest law enforcement-held digital asset stores in the world.
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