ChainCatcher reports that Douyin user Mr. Li Yi posted a video on social media saying that on June 10 this year, he downloaded a fake wallet from Huawei’s official store, exposing his seed phrase and resulting in the theft of 177,473 USDT. According to his account, hackers changed the permissions on his wallet address to require multiple signatures, then carried out a second scam by claiming that he could pay to unlock it. After the victim transferred funds, all the USDT in the address was stolen.

Mr. Li Yi said that after he posted a video exposing the app, its download numbers in the official store plummeted. Hackers repeatedly mobilized paid commenters to report his video, forcing it to be taken down, and privately tried to negotiate an agreement under which he would delete the video in exchange for certain conditions. He also said that, after conducting his own investigation, he learned that the scam app had five servers in Hong Kong. The operators paid to list the app in Huawei’s official store and boost its ranking, leading many victims to download it first in search results. Because of relevant restrictions in mainland China, legitimate wallet apps cannot be listed in the store normally; therefore, apps that are unavailable for legitimate listing but nonetheless appear in the store may all be fake scam apps.