Bored Ape Yacht Club and other popular discord servers of NFT projects were targeted by scammers on April Fools Day. Several users reported losing their money to the scammers who hacked the bots of the projects.
Bored Ape and Other NFT Projects Hacked
According to Engadget, the scammers posted fake offers on the bots with links to their phishing websites to attract victims.
One of the phishing posts by a hacked Bored Ape Yacht Club targeted the holders of MAYC + BAYC. The post stated that the holders would be able to claim rewards by minting and holding Bored Ape's mutant dogs.
According to Motherboard, if a user clicks the link in the post, they will be taken to a website, tricking him into minting a fake NFT in exchange for Ethereum.
Other versions trick the victims into sending the scammers NFTs by making them think that their collectible is going to be wrapped.
Two wallet addresses were connected to the hacks, one of which sold a stolen Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT and then sent the other 19.85 Ethereum, or around $69,000 based on the current exchange rates.
The recipient's wallet reportedly sent 61 Ethereum or $213,000 to a mixing service, which can obscure the origin and trail of potentially identifiable crypto coins.
However, it is not clear how many people fell victim to the scams, but the administrators of the projects quickly caught on and posted a warning to their users.
Bored Ape asked the users not to mint anything from Discord, and it clarified that it was not doing any stealth mints for April Fools Day.
Nyoki Club posted the same warning and admitted that its sever was also compromised because of a recent large-scale hack. It said that it could take control of the situation in just 30 minutes.
NFTs are slowly making their way into mainstream popularity, with celebrities like Madonna and Justin Bieber putting the spotlight on digital collectibles. Scams like these are bound to become more as long as people are investing money into the tokens.
Crypto Scammers Arrested
In March, the US Justice Department announced that two men were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a million-dollar scheme to defraud the NFT owners, according to Cryptopotato.
The two suspects, Ethan Nguyen and Andre Llacuna, allegedly lied about the benefits of purchasing NFTs and withdrawing the cryptocurrency proceeds out of the Frosties account through several transactions.
The real-life identities were disclosed after investigators looked into the relevant record of transactions stored on Ethereum's blockchain and analyzed the associated transfers to accounts on Coinbase.
According to the criminal complaint released by the court on Jan. 2, a total of 8,888 Frosties tokens worth around $1.1 million were sold out 48 minutes after the public sale had gone live. Each NFT went for 0.04 Ethereum, which was around $130 at the time.
Earlier this year, hackers stole NFT worth $2.2 million from an art gallery.
In 2021, Justin Kan's NFT platform was hacked and thousands of dollars were stolen.
Related Article: Fake NFT Drop on Discord: Gaming Firm to Repay Buyers $1.1M Worth of Crypto
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Written by Sophie Webster
