After six days of inactivity, stolen cryptocurrency money associated with a recent $71 million wallet impersonation scam have begun to move. On May 3, an investor fell victim to a wallet poisoning scam, sending $71 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to a bogus wallet address.
Modus Operandi Unveiled
The scammer capitalized on the investor’s oversight. They created a wallet address strikingly similar to the victim’s and initiating a small transaction to establish credibility.
Despite matching the first and last characters, the discrepancy in the middle remained unnoticed. This led the victim to transfer 97% of their assets to the bait address.
Laundering Attempts Detected
Blockchain investigation firm PeckShield noticed a flurry of activity on May 8, as the scammer commenced laundering the stolen funds.
The 1,155 WBTC was swiftly converted to approximately 23,000 ETH and distributed across numerous crypto wallets, employing around 400 wallets to obfuscate the origins of the illicit gains.
Scammers Adopting New Tactics to Drain Crypto Wallets
A new scam targeting tokens adhering to the ERC-2612 token standard has surfaced, It enabled bad actors to drain users’ wallets without transaction approval.
Moreover, leveraging the standard’s “gas-less” transfers, scammers coerce users into signing a message, facilitating unauthorized fund transfers.
Further investigations revealed a sophisticated operation orchestrated through a Telegram group masquerading as the Collab.Land Telegram verification system. The scammers entice victims to provide approval for transactions. Thus, the users unwittingly grant access to their wallets and fall prey to the fraudulent scheme.
Crypto investors are urged to remain vigilant and adopt stringent security measures to safeguard their digital assets against evolving threats in the crypto landscape.
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