The U.S. Justice Department has likely, by accident, revealed the names of the victims of a Nigerian fraudster who stole more than $250,000, according to NOTUS . The application for forfeiture of the frozen $40,350 USDT states that the two victims sent money to a man posing as United States special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who at the time served as co-chairman of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee. The document lists the victims as “Ivan” and “Mone.” NOTUS notes a striking coincidence: the CEO of cryptocurrency payment company MoonPay is Ivan Soto-Wright, and the CFO is Mouna Ammari Siala. Additionally, the wallet involved in the $250,300 transaction is listed on Etherscan as being associated with MoonPay. In a separate search dated 2023, it was alleged that Soto-Wright used the same address to fund a personal account. According to the case file, the victims fell for a common email scam. The fraudster sent messages from the address steve_witkoff@t47lnaugural.com, where the lowercase letter “l” was used in place of a capital “I”—a technique often used by scammers. The perpetrator also used financersvp@t47lnaugural.com, disguised in a similar way. Data from Binance shows that the criminal’s wallet on the exchange is registered to Ehiremena Aigbohan, a resident of Lagos, Nigeria. “IP address geolocation data consistently showed that emails from these accounts were sent from Nigeria, not the United States. It appears that Aigbohan received an international transfer of funds from the U.S. to Nigeria as a result of his fraudulent activities,” the DOJ emphasized.
