Argentine Prosecutors Arrest 24, Seize Over $8M in USDT in 'Fake Coins' Crypto-Fraud Sweep - "The Defiant"

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Argentina's Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor's Office said it arrested 24 people and seized more than 8 million USDT in a nationwide sweep it called "Fake Coins," one of the largest crypto-enforcement actions in the province's history.

The 90 simultaneous raids, executed by the Argentine Federal Police's Cybercrime Directorate, also yielded nearly 60 million pesos in cash and 80 mobile phones. The prosecutor's office put the dismantled schemes' total economic damage at almost 3 billion pesos — roughly $2.4 million at recent rates — across more than 100 separate complaints.

The seizure exceeds the more than $2 million in cryptocurrency confiscated in the 2024 RainbowEx operation, the prosecutor's office said, making "Fake Coins" the largest crypto bust by the province's specialized crypto-assets team in recent memory. Coordination ran through the Procuracion General's Equipo de Asistencia y Coordinacion en Materia de Criptoactivos, led by Dr. Rafael Garcia Borda and Dra. Sabrina Lamperti.