Austrian police have dismantled a criminal network suspected of defrauding more than $1.2 million worth of digital assets and other valuables using counterfeit currency, giving a long-running scam a ‘crypto’ twist “. Elsewhere, scammers are targeting Ledger users with a spoofed email and coercing them into giving up their recovery phrases.
Rip-Deal 2.0 in Austria
Police in the capital Vienna have uncovered a criminal network they say is behind a scam that defrauded more than 1.2 million euros ($1.26 million) from investors, mainly in the area of digital assets. The majority of victims were Austrian.
Local points of sale report that the mastermind behind the operation is a 39-year-old Dutchman of Serbian origin. The unnamed suspect is already serving a three-year sentence after being arrested in Milan earlier this year as part of an operation involving Europol.
Scammers have introduced a digital currency twist to a classic scam known in Austria as the “Rip Deal”. Traditionally, the scheme involved using counterfeit money to purchase high-value items, such as gold watches, and reselling them for real money. However, in “Rip Deal 2.0,” scammers purchased digital assets with fake currency.
Austrian police have been pursuing the scammer for more than three years. A detective leading his manhunt worked with dozens of victims, all of whom were scammed by the Dutch suspect and his cronies.
For example, an Austrian businessman narrowly missed losing $137,000 to scammers after his daughter, a police officer, recognized the telltale signs of a Rip-Deal. The scammers had convinced the man to deposit the money into a digital asset wallet as payment for an industrial machinery contract.
According to the lead detective, scammers usually invite their victims to luxury hotels abroad, with payment almost always made in digital assets. They “asked victims to enter their passwords or ‘seed phrases’ for cryptocurrency wallets, sometimes spying on their phone screens using cameras hidden in the ceiling,” the detective revealed. Armed with the basic phrases, they took the wallets and cleaned them.
Rip-Deal 2.0 is one of several digital currency cases that Vienna police have investigated in recent years. Chief Inspector Gerald Goldnagl, who heads the city’s Rip-Deal Unit, revealed that since 2020 they have solved more than 100 such cases, with losses amounting to $26.3 million .
Globally, digital asset fraudsters continue to wreak havoc on millions of victims. According to Chainalysis half-yearly reportStolen funds and ransomware are the two most common avenues for criminals. In the first six months, these criminals stole $1.58 billion and generated an additional $460 million through ransomware.
Hog slaughter, in which the scammer builds a relationship over weeks or even months with the victim before finally ripping them off, has also become worrying. popular over the last few years.
Fraudsters target Ledger users with fake emails
Still on the scammers’ side, a group of fraudsters is once again targeting Ledger users in a phishing campaign.
Digital asset hardware wallet users have taken to social media to reveal that they had received emails from a legitimate-looking address claiming to be Ledger support staff. The emails all claimed that there had been a recent data breach in which some seed phrases may have been exposed.
“To protect your assets, we strongly encourage you to verify the security of your recovery phrase through our secure verification tool,” the email reads before redirecting users to a website where they must enter their recovery phrase for “verification”.
Those who hand over their seed phrase to scammers have their wallets erased.
In response, Ledger emphasized that its systems were designed to keep user assets secure even in the event of an external incident.
“Ledger devices are purpose-built to keep your assets secure and completely under your control, at all times. We have reinforced our systems time and again to meet the highest security standards in an increasingly connected world,” the French firm declared.
It further reminded users that it never calls, texts, or emails them to ask for their recovery phrase. “If anyone does it, it’s a scam,” he adds.
Ledger users are no strangers to phishing campaigns. The hardware wallet has long been targeted by scammers who pose as Ledger staff or offer fake software before stealing from victims. However, phishing campaigns intensified after a data breach in 2020, in which more than a million customer names, numbers, emails and addresses were leaked.
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