New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against a group of scammers operating a scheme in which they promised fake job opportunities to victims, convincing them they needed to first deposit cryptocurrency. Victims were told they would be generating review data for online products, but that they needed to maintain account balances equivalent or greater to the value of the products they were reviewing. They were then tricked into sending the cryptocurrency into digital wallets where they could be taken by the scammers. Those who tried to withdraw the assets were then scammed again, told they needed to pay a “blockchain verification fee” or “escrow fee”.One single victim was defrauded out of more than $100,000.The NYAG has seized $2.2 million in Tether, and is pursuing legal action against the as-yet-unidentified scammers. Because of the unknown identities of the defendants, the NYAG will serve notice of the lawsuit via NFT — something they describe as a first by government regulators.

Total loss estimated at $2,200,000.