Pig-Butchering Victims: An Attorney on Claiming DOJ Seizures

The letter comes a year and a half after the last transfer: the FBI has seized tether in a wallet your money passed through, and you may petition for remission. The seizure does not pay you by itself. Forfeited money gets to victims through remission or restoration, and most of the victims we hear from recover a share of what was forfeited, not the loss.

Restrained is not paid

The Scam Center Strike Force of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia reports $1,006,460,156.82 in restrained cryptocurrency on its page updated October 29, 2026 [1]. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report describes it as combining that office with the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the FBI and the Secret Service against scam compounds in Cambodia, Laos and Burma [2].

In February 2026, IRS Criminal Investigation reported that the Strike Force’s freezes and seizures had passed $580 million, and the U.S. Attorney said her office would seek to forfeit the funds and return them to victims “to the maximum extent possible” [3]. On September 9, 2026 the office announced a single day’s action against Xinbi, a Telegram marketplace serving scam vendors, that restrained about $52 million with Tether’s help and brought the cumulative total to about $938 million [4].

Sources: DOJ, Scam Center Strike Force [1]; FBI IC3, 2025 Internet Crime Report, p. 11 [2]; DOJ Criminal Division, Victim Compensation [5]

Restraint is the first step. Frozen funds must be forfeited, and the forfeiture must become final, before any of them can move toward a victim; remission is paid only from the net proceeds of property that has been finally forfeited [6]. Treat the billion-dollar figure as the size of the fight, not the size of the fund.

Remission is the Department’s decision

Remission is the process by which the Justice Department compensates crime victims from assets forfeited from the offenders. It is governed by 28 C.F.R. Part 9, it is discretionary, and it is not a general fund for fraud victims: only victims whose losses connect to the crime underlying the forfeiture qualify [6].

A victim is a person who suffered a pecuniary loss as a direct result of the offense underlying a forfeiture [7]. To receive remission, the victim must show [8]:

• a specific pecuniary loss directly caused by the offense, supported by documents;
• a loss caused by the illegal acts, not by otherwise lawful conduct;
• no knowing participation in, benefit from, or willful blindness to the offense;
• no actual compensation of the loss from any source; and
• no reasonably available recourse to other assets.

In large cases the Department may hire a remission administrator to send letters and run a claims website, but the Department remains the sole decision-maker [9]. No hearing is held [10]. You get one written submission to make your case, so make it complete.

Restoration needs a conviction

Restoration works through the criminal case: the Department transfers forfeited funds to the court to pay restitution the judge has ordered [5]. The civil forfeiture statute authorizes transfer of forfeited property “as restoration to any victim of the offense” [11].

Restoration therefore needs a defendant who has been convicted and ordered to pay restitution. Many scam-center seizures are civil actions against the cryptocurrency itself.

On July 21, 2026 the District of Columbia office announced five civil forfeiture complaints seeking more than $25 million; one of them traced funds from more than 200 victims of romance and investment schemes through hundreds of intermediary addresses where the money was commingled [12]. Where the operators are abroad and no one is convicted here, remission is usually the path that remains. Restitution and remission may not cover the same losses [6].

Path	What triggers it	Who rules	What the victim files
Remission	Final forfeiture of property tied to the offense	Justice Department ruling official, no hearing	Petition with documents and a sworn declaration
Restoration	A criminal conviction and a restitution order	The court, with funds transferred by the Department	Usually nothing separate; the loss is proved in the criminal case
Claim in a civil forfeiture case	Notice of a civil forfeiture action	The federal judge, after litigation	A verified claim, then an answer, on court deadlines

Sources: 28 C.F.R. 9.3 and 9.8 [10] [8]; 18 U.S.C. 981 [11]; DOJ Victim Compensation [5]; Supplemental Rule G [13]

The notice sets the deadline

The seizing agency, such as the FBI, generally identifies victims, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office or the agency tells them when remission is possible and how to petition [6]. Forfeiture.gov posts pending federal forfeiture notices and links to the online claim and petition forms [14].

In an administrative forfeiture, petitioners are asked to file within 30 days of receiving the notice, at the address it gives [10]. In a judicial forfeiture, the notice likewise asks for a petition within 30 days, sent to the U.S. Attorney for the district, with the court’s docket number [15]. A victim petition may be considered until the property is disposed of [8], but waiting is a risk: once the money is distributed there is nothing left to petition for.

A claim contesting a civil forfeiture has a firmer deadline. The deadline in a direct notice must be at least 35 days after it is sent; without direct notice, a claim is due 60 days after the notice first appears online, and an answer follows within 21 days [13].

A claim starts litigation with the government, and a court may fine a person who files a frivolous one [14]. Whether to file a claim, a petition or both turns on the victim’s facts. For most pig-butchering victims the petition is the right instrument and the claim is a mistake.

The petition is a documents case

The petition gives the petitioner’s name, address and taxpayer identification number, the seizing agency, the asset identifier, the date and place of seizure, and the petitioner’s interest with supporting documents, sworn under penalty of perjury in a declaration that meets 28 U.S.C. 1746 [15].

The loss must be documented, for example with invoices and receipts [8]. For a cryptocurrency victim, that usually means:

1. The money trail. Wire confirmations, exchange purchase records and withdrawal records showing each transfer to the scam platform, with transaction hashes.
2. The scheme. Screenshots of the platform, the messages with the contact, and any “tax” or “fee” demanded when you tried to withdraw.
3. The link to the seized property. Your transfers matched to the wallets named in the forfeiture notice. The government has already traced the funds; your job is to show that yours are among them.
4. The net figure. What you sent, less anything withdrawn or recovered, because remission covers only uncompensated loss.
5. Your reports. Your IC3 complaint number and any agency case number.

Sources: 28 C.F.R. 9.4(c) [15]; 28 C.F.R. 9.8(b) [8]; DOJ, Scam Center Strike Force [1]

The loss is capped at the fair market value of the property on the date of loss, without forgone interest or recovery costs [8]. Gains shown on a fake dashboard are not a loss, and a petition that claims them invites a denial.

The pool is smaller than the losses

Americans reported $7.2 billion in cryptocurrency investment fraud losses in 2025 alone [2], against roughly $1 billion restrained by the Strike Force since it began [1]. The rules then narrow what can be paid:

• Remission comes only from the net proceeds of finally forfeited assets, after forfeiture costs [6].
• A victim’s payment cannot exceed the victim’s share of net proceeds from the activity that caused the loss [8].
• When the property is not enough for every valid petition, payment is generally pro rata, with possible priority for stronger evidence, extreme hardship and cooperation [8].
• A petition may be denied where the loss is impractical to calculate, or where the victim’s share would be small compared with the government’s expense of processing it [8].
• Payments may be offset against certain delinquent federal debts [6].

The Maine case shows the arithmetic at its best. The FBI seized 470,773 USDT, a court ordered it forfeited, and in March 2026 the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maine announced the return of about $470,735 to two victims who had sent more than $800,000 to the scheme in 2022 [16]. Two victims, a clean trace, a finished forfeiture, and still a little over half the loss.

The Department says the process can be lengthy and it cannot give a timeline [6]. A victim who later recovers from another source must repay the Assets Forfeiture Fund [8].

Nobody charges a fee

The Department and its remission administrators will not ask for payment to take part or to receive funds; a fee request from an unknown source is fraud. Legitimate contact comes from the administrator or from government representatives you have already dealt with [9].

Filing a petition is free, and an attorney is not required [6]. A message that says your funds were found and asks for a release fee, a tax or a wallet connection follows the pattern of the original scam, and the people sending it often bought your details from the people who ran it.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Recovery outcomes depend on the facts of each matter and no result is guaranteed. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Dilendorf Law Firm. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney Advertising.