A developing case is sending shockwaves through the global crypto community. The U.S. Marshals Service has reportedly launched an investigation into allegations that more than $40 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from wallets holding assets seized by the U.S. government.
According to on-chain findings shared by blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the primary suspect is John “Lick” Daghita — the son of Dean Daghita, chairman of CMDSS, a government contractor that has worked with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Defense on managing confiscated digital assets.
ZachXBT’s analysis links at least $23 million in suspicious transactions directly to a broader pool of roughly $90 million in crypto seized by the U.S. government between 2024 and 2025. The flows suggest that funds may have been siphoned from official government-controlled wallets into addresses connected to the suspect.
What has further fueled controversy is that John Daghita allegedly didn’t try very hard to stay low-key. In a viral Telegram clip, he openly flaunted his holdings during a “band for band” flex, sharing a wallet screen that displayed millions of dollars in ETH. On-chain tracing later connected those transactions back to wallets believed to be used by the U.S. government to store seized crypto assets.
If confirmed, the case raises uncomfortable questions about how securely confiscated digital assets are handled — and who really has access behind the scenes. When funds meant to be under state custody can be traced from government wallets to personal addresses, the issue goes far beyond individual wrongdoing and into systemic risk.
For an industry already sensitive to trust, custody, and transparency, the idea that state-held crypto could be mishandled so casually is deeply troubling. In crypto, self-custody is often criticized — but incidents like this remind us that centralized custody, even at the government level, is far from immune to failure.
At the moment, the investigation is ongoing, and no final conclusions have been reached. But one thing is clear: this story is far from over, and its implications could ripple well beyond a single wallet.
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