Stolen funds from a recent $71 million wallet impersonation scam are on the move. After laying dormant for six days, the ill-gotten gains linked to Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) are being dispersed across multiple crypto wallets in an attempt to launder the money.
The heist unfolded on May 3rd when an unsuspecting investor fell victim to a cleverly crafted wallet address scam. Hackers mimicked a legitimate wallet address by using similar alphanumeric characters and tricked the investor into transferring a staggering 97% of their holdings, amounting to 1,155 WBTC, into the imposter’s wallet.
Crazy!
Someone lost 1,155 $WBTC($71M) due to a phishing attack.
How did it happen?👇
6 hours ago, this guy created a new address" 0xd9A1b0B1e1aE382DbDc898Ea68012FfcB2853a91" and transferred 0.05 $ETH to this new address.
A scammer generated an address with the same starting… pic.twitter.com/iiFloZBTga
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 3, 2024
Following the theft, the stolen WBTC was swiftly converted into roughly 23,000 ETH (Ethereum), a cryptocurrency known for its fungibility and privacy-centric mixing services. This conversion tactic is a common technique employed by cybercriminals to obfuscate the origin of stolen funds.
However, the dormancy period ended on May 8th, raising red flags for blockchain investigation firm PeckShield. They observed signs of the stolen funds being fragmented and funneled into a network of approximately 400 separate crypto wallets. This dispersion strategy aims to complicate tracing the origin of the funds and hinder recovery efforts.
#PeckShieldAlert The scammer who grabbed ~$71 million worth of via a poisoning has laundered the stolen funds (~23K ) by sending and spreading them across a large number of wallets.
