Crypto Scammers dupe over 14,000 people to make $6.4M from ‘fake token claims’

Crypto scammers made astir 3,234 Ethereum (ETH) — worthy implicit $6 cardinal — from fake airdrops successful the past 9 months, according to a study by AegisWeb3.

The study showed that betwixt August 2022 and May, the scammers defrauded 14,605 radical done their fake token assertion scams. These phishing scammers nonstop links asking unsuspecting users to assertion airdrops.

However, erstwhile these individuals link their wallets to these sites, their wallets are exploited, and their funds drained.

Source: Aegis Web3

According to AegisWeb3, the astir profitable drainer gained 1024 ETH from 1,714 victims — portion the scammer with the astir victims stole 302 ETH from 2,137 addresses.

Blockchain information steadfast Peckshield corroborated the AegisWeb3 report.

These scammers had a tract time with respective airdrops of fashionable crypto projects similar Blur and Arbitrum (ARB). CryptoSlate reported that 2 malicious players stole implicit a cardinal ARB tokens. At the time, blockchain information steadfast Certik reported a phishing tract advertised by a fake Arbitrum Twitter account.

Meanwhile, the caller proliferation of memecoins has further allowed respective scammers to make fake tokens with the sanction of the archetypal coin to springiness an content of escaped airdrops.

One scammer reportedly used on-chain functionality to make an illusion that PSYOP creator eth_ben was airdropping the memecoin to the public. However, a person look astatine the nexus showed that it leads to a phishing website.

According to AegisWeb3, these scammers punctual users with messages containing words similar “Approve.” But erstwhile users click connected Approve, they unknowingly transportation each their assets to the phishing contracts.

The station Crypto Scammers dupe implicit 14,000 radical to marque $6.4M from ‘fake token claims’ appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.