ZachXBT, a popular on-chain sleuth, has exposed another crypto and NFT scammer. This time, the scammer in question got away with over $1 million in crypto through phishing attacks. The scammer targeted Decentralized Finance(DeFi) projects like Orbiter Finance and Pika Protocol.
Soup exploited Pika Protocol and Orbiter Finance
ZachXBT detailed in a Monday Twitter thread how Soup (aka Dan), pulled off a scam by pretending to be Luke Hamilton, a worker at the crypto media firm Decrypt.
Soup recruited members of numerous crypto project teams to join a fake Decrypt Discord channel in cooperation with other scammers. He then duped them into providing KYC information as part of a fake application and interviewing process. Using this information, he launched a phishing attack in a calculated attempt to acquire their Discord token.
On May 30, 2023, the scammer hacked into the Pika Protocol Discord server and stole $220,000 in cryptocurrency by publishing a malicious link in the announcements channel. Dan acknowledged taking 15% of the fraudsters’ earnings in a private DM.
The next day, the scammers targeted Orbiter Finance and got away with an additional $760,000 via a fraudulent link. Thirty percent of the stolen money, of which 7.5 ETH were found in one of his known addresses, was received by Soup, as he confessed.
Soup managed to gain over $1 million from his scamming ventures. He has spent some of the money to purchase unique five-figure Roblox products.
The recent scams were not the only ones Soup was involved in over the last year. ZachXBT also noted that he was part of the heist of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club(MAYC) NFT #21080. He partnered with Faint, a fellow scammer, and minted a fake MAYC to trade it for a real MAYC. They then managed to sell it to the victim.
In January this year, Soup also stole a Cryptopunk NFT #6983.
Soup’s connection to Blue exposed
ZachXBT managed to identify one of Soup’s addresses through an accident the scammer made. Soup revealed it earlier when proving the ENS address purplelobster.eth was under Blue’s control. Blue was another scammer that ZachXBT uncovered last week. The address showed that Blue had sent Soup ETH worth $25.
In addition, Blue, a former YouTuber turned NFT scammer, was linked to Monkey Drainer, a man who was accused of stealing over $24 million in digital collectibles and bragging about his exploits online. Blue recently employed phishing scams and stole over $200,000 in cryptocurrency and NFTs from the addresses yancy.eth and LoveMake.eth.
ZachXBT notes that it’s disgusting to see these scammers have no remorse and their funds go into tasteless items. He also said that with the information now in the public, legal action is due to the phishing scammers.
Meanwhile, the first half of this year saw several crypto scam schemes and rug pulls. However, there was a noticeable fall in the schemes, as seen by the decreased inflows to illicit wallet addresses.
Notably, scammers made 77% less money at this time than they did the year before. The total amount lost is lower than the previous year despite a 49% rise in financial transfers to the perpetrators of impersonation scams in H1 2023, showing fewer crypto investors are falling for such schemes.
Chainalysis credits the combined efforts of blockchain users in the public and private sectors for the decrease. Additionally, law enforcement agencies’ proactive efforts have been crucial in identifying and apprehending hackers and scammers.
