A recent filing by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) aimed at recovering cryptocurrencies obtained by a fraudster might have involuntarily revealed some of the victims with MoonPay leaders in the spotlight. The DOJ filing, which aims to take possession of USDT worth about $40,300 frozen by Tether, stated that two victims were identified as “Ivan” and “Mouna.” Are MoonPay Execs Scam Victims? Notably, the two victims sent $250,300 in USDT to the scammer who was passing himself off as Steve Witkoff, co-chair of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee. In a shocking turn of events, Binance exchange records have identified the wallet as belonging to a particular Nigerian based in Lagos. The scammer, Ehiremen Aigbokhan, employed a simple variation to his email address by exchanging the uppercase ‘I’ in steve_witkoff@t47lnaugural.com with a lowercase ‘L’. The similarity in letters tricked fraudsters’ victims into thinking they were interacting with the real Witkoff. Interestingly, as highlighted by NOTUS, these victims, Ivan and Mouna, might be in the crypto sector. The victim Ivan shares the same first name as Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO of MoonPay, while Mouna is that of the crypto payment firm’s CFO, Mouna Ammari Siala. An additional hint that suggests these might be the scammer’s victims comes from Etherscan. The wallet involved in the $250,300 transaction is listed as a MoonPay wallet. MoonPay Silent on Scam Traced to Nigerian-Based Fraudster As per the filing, the scammer’s location was traced using IP geolocation data. According to the data, the emails originating from the account originated from Nigeria, not the U.S. An Investigation is currently underway to unravel the details of Aigbokhan’s fraudulent activities. As of press time, MoonPay management has not issued an official statement on the latest discovery. This is coming barely a month after MoonPay secured the New York BitLicense . The State Department of Financial Services granted the milestone approval and allows MoonPay to operate across all 50 U.S. states. Interestingly, the license signals MoonPay as being trustworthy and reliable as they are set to comply with U.S. regulatory guidelines. DOJ Intensifies Crackdown on Fraudsters The DOJ has been active in recent times, seizing over $225 million worth of crypto related to pig butchering scams. These were crypto funds laundered via fake investment scams used to defraud individuals in the industry. The post MoonPay Execs Linked To $250K Wire Transfer to Nigerian Scammer appeared first on TheCoinrise.com .
