Coinbase users have reportedly lost over $5 million in a recent social engineering scheme, according to blockchain investigator ZachXBT. On Monday, ZachXBT revealed that he assisted in recovering about $275,000 worth of cryptocurrencies for a victim affected by this fraud.
In April 2024, an elderly victim from the United States was targeted by scammers from India who impersonated Coinbase support. This scheme resulted in the theft of a significant portion of the victim's life savings. ZachXBT mentioned on X that the elderly victim was misled into moving funds from a Ledger hardware device after being told that their Coinbase account was compromised.
During his investigation, ZachXBT discovered evidence linking an additional $5 million in stolen bitcoin and ether to the same alleged scam. He noted that approximately 15 BTC was sent to an unlabelled centralized exchange shortly after the fraud occurred and subsequently moved onto the Tron blockchain.
Analytics firm Chainalysis reported a decrease in illicit on-chain activity in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year; however, incidents of stolen funds and ransomware are increasing. Specifically, stolen funds inflows surged from $857 million to $1.58 billion.
Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have issued warnings regarding the rise of crypto fraud, particularly concerning “pig butchering” confidence schemes.
Last month, ZachXBT disclosed involvement in an investigation that identified a hacking group responsible for stealing $243 million from a single unnamed individual.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice.
