If you’re the type to consider cryptocurrency a scam in and of itself, then this story will be a Russian nesting doll of scams within scams. A recent investigation has uncovered a crypto heist of $243 million worth of digital currency from one guy.
On August 19, a creditor to the now-defunct trading firm called Genesis fell victim to a complex social engineering attack orchestrated by a few cybercriminals posing as Google support technicians. Two people have since been arrested, one in Miami and one in Los Angeles.
A prolific crypto sleuth known as ZachXBT identified the scammers in a thread on X as Malone Iam, Veer Chetal, and Jeandiel Serrano. They allegedly manipulated the victim into providing them their sensitive private information, including their private keys to their Bitcoin wallet, so they could reset the victim’s two-factor authentication and transfer their funds.
The scam was wildly successful as the trio was able to steal 4,064 Bitcoin valued at around $243 million. The stolen Bitcoin was then stashed among 15 cryptocurrency exchanges and laundered through several other cryptocurrencies like Monero, Ethereum, and Litecoin in an attempt to muddy any efforts to trace the coins.
The prolific (alleged) thieves were also prolific leakers, apparently. Zach’s thread includes a private video recording of the moment they received the $243 million.
Screenshots showed them leaking their names and leaking some wallets where they stored the funds. Instagram posts showed them spending the money on luxury goods like watches, jewelry, and cars. In a particularly tragic screenshot of some DMs, a young man offers a girl a pink car as an “early birthday gift.” She responds, “I am taken once again.”
This being crypto, naturally, ZachXBT is offering his research as an NFT.
Investigators were able to freeze $9 million worth of stolen funds and have thus far returned $500,000 to the victim. Two of the suspects, Iam and Serrano, have been arrested, one in Los Angeles, and the other’s rented multimillion-dollar oceanside Miami home was raided by the FBI on Wednesday, September 18.
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The post Crypto Scammers Steal $243,709,068.03 from Literally One Guy appeared first on VICE.
