How $12 Million In Crypto Got Thrown Into the American Bureaucracy Blender 😂

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It was announced, if such a word can hold the enormity of the act, that the machinery of United States justice-always whirring, always hungry-had discovered within its blinking screens and clattering keyboards a sum of money so large that even bureaucrats might pause before misplacing it. $12 million in Tether, to be exact. The source, however, proved less remarkable: the latest in a lineage of schemes so inventive, so profoundly mediocre, that one suspects fraudsters must be running out of fresh ideas.

On a certain Friday, which as usual arrived with neither justice nor coffee for those involved, John A. Sarcone III, currently Acting (what a splendidly noncommittal title!) United States Attorney, together with Craig L. Tremaroli, an FBI agent whose business card surely features a magnifying glass, declared this seizure. September 9, 2025. Mark it in your calendars, comrades. Or perhaps don’t.

Victims? Yes, they’re here too. Ten women, Mandarin-speaking, whose greatest misfortune was answering a text from someone whose regard for the truth rivaled that of a Soviet bureaucrat at ration time. Over $10.3 million disappeared, not with bells and whistles, but through the magic of a fake website, ShakepayEX. Apparently, it looked so like a legitimate Canadian crypto exchange that nobody noticed the fine print: “We promise nothing.” The grand tradition continues: the less believable the story, the larger the sum lost.

Attempts to recover the lost fortune provoked a creative surge in the fraudsters, who conjured up “justifications” so fanciful one imagines Dostoevsky would nod in approval. Blockchain analysis-whatever this mysterious force may be-was summoned, as though police could wave a wand and cry “Abracadabra!” And hey, it worked, almost. The tokens, destined for oblivion, instead landed beneath the all-seeing eye of law enforcement, who are always happiest when counting other people’s money.

Attorney Sarcone had words. “Cryptocurrency investment scams are the latest vehicle…” Oh, the vehicles! Horses, trains, tanks, and now bitcoins. The American way-to ensure technology serves only the righteous, and the righteous bear briefcases and government ID. Meanwhile, perpetrators, hiding behind screens, simply click and snicker, as if the law’s long arm ends in a rubber finger.

The FBI drones on: “Cryptocurrency scams are one of the most prevalent and damaging fraud schemes…” etc., etc. Emotional distress is tallied, presumably on spreadsheets printed in triplicate. Justice, relief, forms in quadruplicate-paraded for the camera. But the criminals? Ghosts with Wi-Fi. Victims? Trusting souls who believed that a website ending in ‘EX’ hid treasures instead of traps.

And so, the proceedings lumber forward. The funds will be seized, bureaucracy will thrive, and we shall continue to speculate-between sips of weak tea-where the next digital bamboozle will arise. After all, as every citizen knows, where there is hope for fortune, there are ten bureaucrats waiting to confiscate it, three scam artists eager to steal it, and exactly zero happy endings. 🤷‍♂️💸🔍

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2025-09-10 10:55