Stake.com Cited as DOJ Seeks $5 Million Bitcoin Seizure in SIM Swap Case : PMPMedia.io

By Arijit Roul - 17 Sep, 2025 More about the author

The United States Department of Justice plans to seize more than $5 million in Bitcoin linked to SIM swap attacks. Prosecutors in the country said scammers cleaned the money through crypto casino accounts like Stake.com after taking it from victim wallets. According to a civil forfeiture complaint, the fraud scheme hit five United States residents between October 29, 2022, and March 31, 2023. Fraudsters convinced telecom operators to move control of victims’ numbers to them, which is the common SIM swap trick.

With numbers under their control, scammers captured authentication codes and used them to enter the crypto accounts of the victims. Stolen Bitcoin then moved through many addresses, and later ended up in one wallet. From there, the wallet funded an account on Stake.com and some other casinos, the complaint stated.

Circular Payments

Between March 20 and March 22, 2023, no fewer than 32 circular transactions occurred. The DOJ said the transactions involved repeating deposits and withdrawals of the same Bitcoin to cover the source and the owner. If a judge approves forfeiture, the Department of Justice can take legal ownership of the Bitcoin and may send funds back to victims. Stake.com was mentioned as a casino platform used to move the stolen money, but it is not accused of doing anything wrong, while its account data is important in the DOJ’s tracing of the stolen coins. Authorities note that as crypto goes deeper into financial systems, regulators apply civil forfeiture and blockchain tracking to find stolen digital assets.

SIM Swapping on the Rise

Reports from police groups and fraud monitoring units show SIM swap scams continue to rise and now pose a global problem. The UK experienced a sharper increase, with Cifas noting a 1,055% rise in unauthorised SIM swaps between 2023 and 2024. Experts warned that the numbers might not show the full scale of fraud because many victims avoid reporting their losses.