Cryptocurrency theft worth $ 11.5 million is an innocent trick

Last October, a federal judge approved a restraining order for the recovery of more than $ 600,000 worth of photographs. Bitcoin After Central Investigators claimed that part of the $ 11.6 million stolen from the client’s account of the popular crypto exchange coinbase was from the Hobby Global Wallet, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

The scam, which took place last April after a Coinbase customer bought 200 bitcoins, sent a warning message to the buyer to close his account, although it appears to have come from the Coinbase site, which has been reported as a fraudulent notification. Filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

Case documents show that this notice was the first step in a scam in which 206 bitcoins were stolen within 10 minutes from a user’s account.

Despite the confidentiality of data in the cryptocurrency world, it is believed that investigations have not revealed how the fraudster came to know about the transaction that took place in the customer’s Coinbase account.

The Coinbase customer, who is only referred to as GR in court documents, said he called the phone number in the notice thinking he was calling a Coinbase customer service representative, according to a federal complaint filed by investigators last month.

The other party on the phone answered him, asking him to make a series of changes to the account, including allowing remote access to the account.

“Once access was granted to the victim’s account, the fraudster increased the daily transaction limit and attempted to deactivate certain notifications and alert systems in the victim’s account,” said U.S. Attorney Dan J. Boyle wrote in the filed document. United States.

Within minutes, investigators said billions of dollars in Bitcoin and Stellar “cryptocurrency” had been removed from GR’s account.

They said, “The total value of the cryptocurrency transferred from the victim’s account exceeds $ 11.5 million.

The fraudster transferred funds through a series of transactions between several anonymous accounts, one of which was about 10.2 bitcoins, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world known as Hobi Global.

Investigators filed a foreclosure notice seeking the recovery of the cryptocurrency.

Tom Mrosick, director of media relations at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, told Insider in an email that “Hooby agreed to withhold funding until the confiscation case is resolved.” As seen by Al-Arabiya.net, “No one has been arrested or charged, but our investigations are ongoing,” he added.