Overview
- State investigators, speaking Tuesday in Ocala, said they disrupted a romance-turned-investment scheme and identified about $5.4 million in linked cryptocurrency in what they called the largest such recovery in a single statewide case.
- $700,000 is being returned to victims in Florida and $1.3 million to victims in Massachusetts, with other seized or frozen assets still tied up in court.
- Detectives say scammers met people on dating sites, built fake relationships, and pushed them into crypto “investments” routed through a single digital wallet, with many targets being seniors, including a man who lost about $450,000 in weeks.
- The Marion County Sheriff’s Office traced the funds and worked with the Attorney General’s Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit, which plans to share its investigative playbook so other agencies can copy the approach.
- CFEU reports $3.3 million recovered in the first quarter of 2026, $7.2 million recovered to date, and $12.6 million frozen pending litigation, and any money that cannot go back to victims will bolster future recovery efforts.