Federal seizure of tickmilleas.com targets pig butchering crypto fraud

Show description: Federal authorities seized the domain tickmilleas.com after identifying it as a front for a pig butchering crypto fraud that simulated deposits, staged trades, displayed fabricated balances, delayed withdrawals with invented fees or identity checks, and routed victim funds to operator-controlled wallets and off-platform channels. Investigators in San Diego reported more than 400 victims and about $90 million in losses in fiscal year 2024 and linked the domain to the Tai Chang compound in Kyaukhat, Myanmar, whose associated entities were designated as specially designated nationals by the U.S. Treasury. The seizure was coordinated with the Department of Justice Scam Center Strike Force, which combines U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the DOJ Criminal Division, the FBI, and the U.S. Secret Service and coordinates with State, Treasury/OFAC, and Commerce to sequence domain seizures, sanctions, and cross-border cooperation. Government agencies worked with industry to identify connected infrastructure and accounts; Meta removed roughly 2,000 accounts linked to the operation; DOJ and partner agencies reported more than $401 million in cryptocurrency seized and forfeited from related schemes to date, and in October 2025 the government announced the seizure of about 127,000 bitcoin connected to forced labor scam compounds. Guidance issued to founders, product teams, and exchange operators included expanding detection to off-platform signals, monitoring for shifts from public outreach to private chats, tracking referral traffic from messaging URLs, flagging spikes in new accounts tied to specific domains, mapping and monitoring SDN designations and seized domains, enhancing transaction monitoring to detect mismatches between user-facing activity and on-chain flows, implementing response playbooks for rapid transaction holds and outreach, surfacing warnings when users follow external links, offering pause and reporting mechanisms, and building direct reporting routes to law enforcement and internal trust teams. Victims were advised to file complaints with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov and to include transaction details, screenshots, wallet addresses, and communication records; the U.S. Secret Service reported handling thousands of crypto fraud victims and offering assistance with exchange coordination. Authorities signaled an expectation of continued domain seizures, account takedowns, and expanded sanctions designations as the Strike Force scales. 

Source: https://theweb3.news/crypto/fbi-seizes-tickmilleas-scam-site/

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