Bragging crypto criminal story turns into an investigation by US Marshals

The US Marshals Service (USMS) confirmed to Coindesk that investigations are underway into claims that the son of a Department of Defense and Department of Justice services provider, responsible for managing seized crypto, stole more than $40 million in these assets.

Marshals were responding to a story, uncovered by a blockchain analyst, ZachXBT, who first identified John "Lick" Daghita as a suspect in a multimillion-dollar crypto heist, later linking him to Dean Daghita, the president of Command Services & Support (CMDSS).

CMDSS is a Virginia-based company awarded a USMS contract in October 2024 to help with the custody and disposition of seized crypto assets. At the time of writing, the company's website is back online after a reported deactivation, offering only basic information on the front page and mentioning no team members. Meanwhile, its X and LinkedIn accounts remain deactivated.

"It still remains unclear at this point how John obtained access from his dad," ZachXBT said, later adding that "Lick" once again started trolling on Telegram and kept sending him ethereum (ETH) (worth around $2,000) from the stolen government funds. The analyst said all the stolen funds he receives will be sent to a US government seizure address.

Meanwhile, other blockchain analysts have contributed their analysis on how the funds were laundered, based on ZachXBT's data.

"Funds moved from victim and seizure-linked addresses into intermediary theft wallets, where value was split, recombined, and cycled through multiple hops," TRM Labs said.

According to them, the assets were routed through a combination of centralized exchanges, non-custodial services, decentralized exchange infrastructure, and cross-chain swap mechanisms, consistent with efforts to introduce liquidity and obscure provenance before reconvergence.

The analysts have also emphasized that this kind of public exposure of alleged control over such assets is "highly unusual."

"Historically, investigations of this scale rely on covert tracing, exchange cooperation, and prolonged legal processes rather than voluntary disclosure," they concluded, noting that any movement of funds tied to government-controlled wallets is likely under active monitoring by US authorities.

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