Another start of the week, another crypto scam alert. This week’s latest phishing scam opened Pandora’s box of scamming tactics after almost $3 million was stolen by an impersonator pretending to be a top crypto trader.
Crypto Scams, A Tale As Old As Time
Whether prices are up or down, scammers are on the lookout for their next big heist, and this market slowdown was no exception.
Crypto detective ZachXBT informed about the latest scamming attack over the weekend. The investigator shared that an account pretending to be renowned crypto trader Ansem (@blknoiz06 on X) phished over $2.6 million.
An account impersonating @blknoiz06 phished >$2.6M today just by replying to each of his posts taking advantage of the recent meme coin craze.
The largest single victim lost ~$1.2M.
Theft addressBUYgBfavHoGbfGYseyTWpzqKNeeYFjoJsgxiQcH4in4v pic.twitter.com/ZKcoh5vaOs
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 16, 2024
Under the @blfnoiz06 username, the impersonating account replied to the trader’s X posts promoting a presale link that redirected users to a wallet drainer.
The scammer would announce under each post that he was about to “launch his token” $BULL, and the presale participants were required to send a minimum of 1 SOL and a maximum of 3 SOL.
Ironically, the scammer replied to one of Ansem’s posts where he stated, “I don’t launch coins bros.” As reported by the crypto detective, the largest victim lost $1.2 million worth of SOL. Hours after the report, an additional $250,000 had been stolen, raising the loot to almost $3 million.
Another ~$250K stolen since my post lol
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) March 17, 2024
When questioned whether these were real victims or scammers moving their stolen tokens around, ZachXBT confirmed that several victims, including the largest one, had messaged him to inform him of the scam.
Phishing In Troubled Waters
Despite not being a new tactic, the number of phishing scams involving popular and influential actors in the crypto community appears to have increased recently.
Scrolling through social media, especially X, means seeing many accounts pretending to be important figures and trying to catch naive, greedy, or incautious users.
Web3 anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer urged its followers to stay vigilant after detecting several impersonators trying to prey on crypto users.
some of the fake accounts we've detected recently impersonating @ether_fi @Mint_Blockchain @swellnetworkio @0xDekadente
Stay vigilant, stay safe! pic.twitter.com/IzNAbQU07W
— Scam Sniffer | Web3 Anti-Scam (@realScamSniffer) March 18, 2024
The array of personalities and projects being taken advantage of goes from virtual artists to L2 NFT-focused blockchains to liquid re-staking protocols, as reported by the anti-scam platform.
Scammers appear to be trying to take advantage of the memecoin frenzy that’s taking place. Recently, many projects have raised millions in presales, and many investors are looking for their next big profit. As a result, phishing in troubled waters becomes an easy task.
As seen in the dramatic launch of the Solana-based memecoin Slerf, impersonators tried to take advantage of the situation. They created an account pretending to represent the team behind the project.
This launch saw the accidental burn of the Liquidity pool (LP) and Presale airdrop SLERF tokens, which resulted in the loss of over $10 million raised by presale participants.
Responding to the real account, the impersonator claimed the mistake was “a joke” and provided a fraudulent link for presale investors to “claim” their tokens.
These tactics have made many affected figures limit the people who can reply to their posts and issue warnings about the scam. Similarly, others have chosen to end their posts with an image disclosing that any other information or link below doesn’t come from them.
It’s worth noting that crypto heists continue to shake the crypto space, with millions lost. Due to this, crypto users must be wary of the links they engage with and ensure they have taken enough security measures to safeguard their funds.
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