At least according to the rather shady Tether stablecoin provider, the U.S. Department of Justice has been working on an investigation into a massive “pig butchering” romance scam and human trafficking operation based out of Southeast Asia.According to Tether, they “voluntarily fr[oze] approximately 225 million in USDT tokens” in connection to the investigation.Some romance scammers hoping to lure victims into sending them cryptocurrencies are themselves victims of human trafficking operations, where they are held victim and forced to send such messages.

Total loss estimated at $225,000,000.