🚨WILD: A crypto scammer just got robbed of over 60 BTC, worth $4.8 million, in the very same Ledger hardware wallet theft that's been draining victims across the industry.
According to Chainalysis, the funds originated from a "task scam," a scheme where victims are paid to fake sales and reviews for real products. After building up a false sense of trust, participants are suddenly shown a fabricated "negative balance" and told they must deposit their own money to get paid out.
On September 22, the scam's operator moved all those stolen proceeds into three separate Ledger wallet addresses, seemingly for safekeeping. On October 9, spyware embedded in compromised Ledger devices did exactly what it was designed to do, the thieves drained all three wallets in a single sweep, funneling everything into one wallet already flagged for holding stolen funds.
The irony here is hard to overstate. A fraud operation built on stealing from victims lost its entire haul to an even more sophisticated theft, supply-chain spyware hidden inside compromised hardware wallets before they ever reached the buyer.
Chainalysis has linked this incident to a broader investigation into the Ledger compromise, which researchers now estimate has drained over $100 million across hundreds of wallets and multiple blockchains.
No one in this story gets their money back, but watching a scammer get out-scammed is still one of crypto's more satisfying plot twists.
#Crypto #Bitcoin #Scam #Chainalysis #CryptoSecurity
According to Chainalysis, the funds originated from a "task scam," a scheme where victims are paid to fake sales and reviews for real products. After building up a false sense of trust, participants are suddenly shown a fabricated "negative balance" and told they must deposit their own money to get paid out.
On September 22, the scam's operator moved all those stolen proceeds into three separate Ledger wallet addresses, seemingly for safekeeping. On October 9, spyware embedded in compromised Ledger devices did exactly what it was designed to do, the thieves drained all three wallets in a single sweep, funneling everything into one wallet already flagged for holding stolen funds.
The irony here is hard to overstate. A fraud operation built on stealing from victims lost its entire haul to an even more sophisticated theft, supply-chain spyware hidden inside compromised hardware wallets before they ever reached the buyer.
Chainalysis has linked this incident to a broader investigation into the Ledger compromise, which researchers now estimate has drained over $100 million across hundreds of wallets and multiple blockchains.
No one in this story gets their money back, but watching a scammer get out-scammed is still one of crypto's more satisfying plot twists.
#Crypto #Bitcoin #Scam #Chainalysis #CryptoSecurity