A U.S. citizen found herself at the center of a scheme to steal $5 million in cryptocurrency.
Blockchain investigations analyst ZachXBT has identified American Tiffany Milanovich as being involved in a series of attacks in which criminals stole at least $5 million in digital assets. The criminals' key tool was fake calls from purported crypto service support teams.
Milanovich served as a "call operator": she contacted victims, posing as a tech support employee, and convinced them to hand over control of their funds. After successfully draining accounts, she recorded videos mocking the victims, indicating the cynical nature of the criminal activity.
Mechanics of the criminal scheme
The perpetrator operated as part of an organized group, mimicking the work of real hardware wallet and centralized exchange support. The infrastructure for phishing sites was provided by accomplices under the pseudonyms "bled" and "harm." In June 2026, one victim lost $1.2 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum stored on a Trezor wallet. The attack began with a fake email purportedly from BitcoinIRA, signed by Patricia Massi.
Notably, a significant portion of the stolen funds has not yet been withdrawn and remains on on-chain addresses, offering hope for their recovery during further investigative efforts. In October 2025, another victim lost $500,000 in BTC after the group gained access to their Coinbase account. According to investigation data, Milanovich openly complained about her "small share" at the time and even published screenshots of the withdrawals.
Extravagance and ties to other criminals
Transaction analysis showed that Milanovich did not hide her spending: she purchased luxury items and placed large casino bets with the victims' money. Some of the boastful videos were edited to inflate the actual amounts stolen. Additionally, ZachXBT links her to John "Lick" Dagita, who was previously accused of stealing cryptocurrency seized by U.S. authorities and was detained in Saint Martin in March.
This incident is just the tip of the iceberg. The FBI recorded more than 80,000 complaints about impersonation of tech support and government agency staff in 2025 alone, with losses exceeding $2.9 billion. According to Chainalysis estimates, the number of such schemes in the crypto sector grew by nearly 1400% over the year.
My expert opinion: The rise in social engineering attacks is a troubling signal for the entire industry. Even hardware wallets, considered the gold standard of security, do not protect against the human factor. Investors need to implement multi-factor authentication and, critically, never share seed phrases or account control over the phone, no matter who the caller claims to be.