{"id":240557,"date":"2026-10-16T22:12:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=240557"},"modified":"2026-10-16T22:12:36","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:12:36","slug":"poetic-justice-scammer-lost-5m-in-bitcoin-after-being-targeted-by-ledger-thieves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/?p=240557","title":{"rendered":"Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Call it poetic justice: one of the biggest victims of last week\u2019s Ledger theft happened to be a scammer themself, according to blockchain analysts, and lost nearly $5 million in bitcoin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a post Thursday, Chainalysis wrote<\/a> that a crook lost 60 bitcoins worth about $4.8 million they\u2019d stolen via a so-called task scam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Chainalysis, the address was linked with a con where\u00a0people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. They were told to add their own money in order to get paid \u2014 and then stolen from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

One of the biggest victims of the Ledger theft was a scammer themselves. They lost more than 60BTC, about $4.8M. The funds were from a task scam.<\/p>\n

In this task scam, people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. Then a “negative balance” appeared, and they were told\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/IJX4tx9ib3<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/pGXNJkZJUi<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Chainalysis (@chainalysis) October 15, 2026<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

But the mastermind behind the task scam moved the stolen money to Ledger addresses which were then targeted by different scammers last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Sep 22, the person behind the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses,\u201d Chainalysis said. \u201cOn Oct 9, thieves emptied all three. One transfer each, into the same wallet. The wallet is reported as stolen funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paris-based Ledger last week said<\/a> it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported they\u2019d lost funds after buying from Malaysia-based reseller, CryptoBilis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ledger has since said that the scam was a massive organized crime operation where a group installed implants into devices and put them back on the market. The implants could read users\u2019 seed phrases so criminals could then drain wallets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calling it one the most \u201csophisticated attacks\u201d the digital asset industry has experienced, Ledger is yet to reveal how much money has been lost \u2014 but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the task scam conman, according to Chainalysis, was one of the victims. <\/p>\n

Ledger has said that it is working with law enforcement to \u201cfollow the funds and dismantle the attackers\u2019 infrastructure\u201d and has made sure no other vendors have been targeted by scammers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger products, the company said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Criminals have targeted bitcoin hardware sellers this year, with a huge attack taking place in July on the popular Coldcard products.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Crooks were able to steal<\/a> close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users because the devices had a firmware bug which led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to guess investor seedphrases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This post Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Mathew Di Salvo<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves Call it poetic justice: one of the biggest victims of last week\u2019s Ledger theft happened to be a scammer themself, according to blockchain analysts, and lost nearly $5 million in bitcoin.\u00a0 In a post Thursday, Chainalysis wrote that a crook […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":240558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/240558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mycryptomania.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}