A scammer was among the largest victims in last week’s Ledger theft case, losing 60 BTC worth about $4.8 million, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
In a Thursday post, Chainalysis said the funds had originally been stolen through a so-called task scam. The firm linked the address to a scheme in which people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real products, then told to put in their own money before being defrauded.
Stolen funds were moved into Ledger addresses before being drained
Chainalysis said the person behind the task scam later moved the stolen proceeds into Ledger addresses, which were then targeted by a different set of thieves last week.
“On Sep 22, the person behind the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses,” Chainalysis said. “On Oct 9, thieves emptied all three. One transfer each, into the same wallet. The wallet is reported as stolen funds.”
The company also said on social media that one of the biggest victims in the Ledger theft was the scammer themself, who lost more than 60 BTC, or about $4.8 million, and that the money came from a task scam.
Ledger says it is investigating losses reported in Southeast Asia
Paris-based Ledger said last week that it had opened an investigation after customers in Southeast Asia reported losing funds after buying devices from Malaysia-based reseller CryptoBilis.
Ledger later said the case was a large organized crime operation. According to the company, a group installed implants into devices and then put those products back on the market. The implants could read users’ seed phrases, allowing criminals to drain wallets.
Ledger called the incident one of the most “sophisticated attacks” the digital asset industry has seen. The company has not disclosed how much money was lost, but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained.
Law enforcement work and reseller action
Ledger said it is working with law enforcement to “follow the funds and dismantle the attackers’ infrastructure,” and added that it has made sure no other vendors were targeted by the scammers.
The company also said CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger products.
Hardware wallet sellers have also been targeted this year
The report said criminals have gone after bitcoin hardware sellers this year as well. In July, a major attack hit popular Coldcard products.
According to the report, a firmware bug caused faulty seed generation, which allowed hackers to guess investors’ seed phrases and steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users.
The report first appeared in Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.