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

Crypto scammers made around 3,234 Ethereum (ETH) — worth over $6 million — from fake airdrops in the past nine months, according to a report by AegisWeb3.

The report showed that between August 2022 and May, the scammers defrauded 14,605 people through their fake token claim scams. These phishing scammers send links asking unsuspecting users to claim airdrops.

However, when these individuals connect their wallets to these sites, their wallets are exploited, and their funds drained.

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

Blockchain security firm Peckshield corroborated the AegisWeb3 report.

These scammers had a field day with several airdrops of popular crypto projects like Blur and Arbitrum (ARB). CryptoSlate reported that two malicious players stole over a million ARB tokens. At the time, blockchain security firm Certik reported a phishing site advertised by a fake Arbitrum Twitter account.

Meanwhile, the recent proliferation of memecoins has further allowed several scammers to create fake tokens with the name of the original coin to give an impression of free airdrops.

One scammer reportedly used on-chain functionality to create an illusion that PSYOP creator eth_ben was airdropping the memecoin to the public. However, a closer look at the link showed that it leads to a phishing website.

According to AegisWeb3, these scammers prompt users with messages containing words like “Approve.” But when users click on Approve, they unknowingly transfer all their assets to the phishing contracts.

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