Crypto sleuth probes attacker behind Bored Ape heist

Law enforcement detained the wrong person for a 2022 scam that pilfered more than $1 million worth of Bored Ape non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cybersecurity researcher ZachXBT said. In a May 9 X post, ZachXBT said he identified the wallet behind the scam and linked it to an X account that has since been deleted. But in 2023, law enforcement detained Sam Curry, a former Yuga Labs security researcher, at an airport as a suspect in the incident, ZachXBT said. Yuga Labs is the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. “It’s unfortunate to see how a security researcher was detained when stronger leads on a threat actor potentially responsible exist,” ZachXBT said. Related: Crypto sleuth ZachXBT says he unmasked 50x Hyperliquid whale Anonymous attacker In December 2022, an anonymous attacker stole 14 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, which at the time traded for roughly $86,000 each, according to data from CoinSlam. Law enforcement then “mistakenly reviewed logs from OpenSea which included [Curry’s] home IP address and used this to incorrectly link him as the suspect,” ZachXBT wrote. “In reality as part of his security work at Yuga, [Curry] had been investigating the theft and used a private key put in the JavaScript of the website by the threat actor,” ZachXBT said. ZachXBT said he used forensic tracing — including reconstructing the flow of funds through Tornado, an Ethereum mixer — to identify a person he alleges is a likely suspect in the 2022 theft. He said law enforcement officials should “request all data related to [the individual’s] social media accounts” and dig into on-chain transactions associated with their alleged wallet. Launched in 2021, Bored Ape Yacht Club is among the most valuable NFT collections, with a cumulative market capitalization of more than $300 million, according to data from CoinGecko. As of May 9, Bored Ape NFTs trade for roughly $30,000 each, according to NFT marketplace OpenSea. Individual NFTs vary in price due to unique characteristics. Magazine: Adam Back says Bitcoin price cycle ’10x bigger’ but will still decisively break above $100K Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/zachxbt-wrong-suspect-detained-bored-ape-nft-theft?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound