Change Of Heart: Crypto Scammer Returns $34.7 Million To Victim’s Address
10 Mayo 2024 - 4:00PM
NEWSBTC
A week ago, a crypto whale fell victim to a scam that resulted in
the loss of over $71 million. In the following days, the scammer
moved the funds to veil them. But in a shocking turn of events,
they returned the funds to the victim. Related Reading: Ethereum
Foundation Moves 1,000 ETH – Is The Top In? Address Poisoning Scam
Snatches $71 Million On May 3, whale 0x1E22…8FD5 lost 1,155 Wrapped
Bitcoin (WBTC), worth around $71.31 million, after falling victim
to an address poisoning scam. This scam, also known as address
spoofing, consists of trying to trick users into sending funds to
fraudulent lookalike accounts. #PeckShieldAlert #Phishing A whale
0x1E22…8FD5 lost ~1,155 $WBTC (worth ~$71 million) after falling
victim to address poisoning.The phisher has swapped the stolen
$WBTC for ~23K $ETH & transferred them out
pic.twitter.com/dr7eTYQkAX — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) May
3, 2024 The “vanity addresses” are custom-made with specific
characters that look like the intended recipient’s address.
Scammers send transactions of no value, hoping the similarity
between the addresses will fool the user under attack. If
successful, victims copy the fraudulent address from the previous
transactions and accidentally send their assets to the scammers
instead. PeckShieldAlert reported that the phisher immediately
swapped the stolen WBTC for 23,000 Ether (ETH) before transferring
them to a different address. Throughout the following days, the
scammer laundered the funds. Sending them to ten different
addresses before distributing the tokens through over 100 other
addresses. This development painted a looming picture for the
crypto whale. At this point, the funds appeared to be
unrecoverable. One user called the massive number of transfers a
“crypto musical chairs” game. Others justified the scammer,
claiming he had not stolen the funds, as “he just received them.”
This stance disregards the transaction’s nature. The transfer
occurs under the belief that funds are safely being transferred to
the intended account and not a lookalike. Moreover, the lookalike
address is in the victim’s transaction history, clearly intended to
deceive the user into receiving funds not meant for them. Change Of
Heart Or Scared Of The Crypto Community? In a shocking turn of
events, the scammer sent 51 ETH, worth around $153,000, back to the
victim on Thursday. Alongside the funds, the phisher sent a message
asking to contact the whale, seemingly looking to negotiate. The
reasons behind the sudden change of heart remain a mystery to the
community. Many are jokingly theorizing why the scammer returned
the funds. One X user playfully suggested that the phisher feared
being investigated by crypto sleuth ZachXBT. Others claimed that
“even the scammer doesn’t want ETH,” referencing the criticism the
second-largest cryptocurrency has faced after its performance
during this cycle. In the early hours of Friday, PeckShieldAlert
revealed that 2,683.7 ETH, worth about $8 million, had already been
transferred to the whale from nearly 50 different addresses. A
couple of hours later, an update showcased that around 50% of the
total funds had been returned, accounting for 11,446.87 ETH, or
$34.7 million. Related Reading: Crypto Expert Forecasts The ‘Age of
Ethereum’: What This Means Retrieving all the assets might take
time due to the large number of addresses holding the funds. At the
time of writing, over $45 million worth of ETH has already been
returned, and the transactions continue. Ether (ETH) is trading at
$3,035.8 in the three-day chart. Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView
Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
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