The rise of crypto-related crime has attracted the attention of global regulators, who have imposed corrective measures to shield the consumer from exploitative business activities. Despite the intense efforts to combat crypto crimes, criminals have advanced their skills and expertise to rob innocent customers.
In an interview with one of the hack victim, whose names were withheld due to privacy concerns, argued that security measures imposed by the UK regulators were deemed inadequate in mitigating crypto crime.
Rise of Crypto Crime
He explained that the regulatory approach utilized by the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) to combat crypto crimes was ill-equipped. During the interview, the affected customer revisited an event that exposed him to 100% losses.
The troubled customer confessed that he was among the victims of the Ledger hacking incident, where the hackers purported to work with the company support team. He recalled losing approximately $46,000 after scammers lured him into their dubious scheme.
The hack victim stated that the event occurred in September last year after the scammers informed him of a security breach on his Ledger account. The scammers claimed that due to the severity of the security breach, it was important for the customers to upgrade their accounts to security level 3.
Law Enforcers Fails to Support Recovery of Stolen Crypto Assets
In the report, the scammers shared the procedure required to upgrade the user account to an advanced stage. During the upgrade, the customer was instructed to insert specific crypto addresses provided by the scammers and undergo multiple verifications.
Shortly after completing the upgrade, the customer realized that it was a scam, and the hackers had escaped with 0.93 Bitcoin value at around $40,000 and 4000 RNDR amounting to $6080.
After extensively probing the matter, the Ledger team noted that scammers made multiple transactions to conceal their unlawful activity. The report demonstrated that the stolen funds were sent to Roobet Casino.
Also, the probing team noted that the scammers transferred 1214.01 RNDR worth $1845 to Binance before the Roobet transaction.
Based on the regulatory requirement for gaming defined by the global gambling rule and regulation, Ledger believed that Roobet could support the recovery of the stolen funds. The Ledger team took decisive action to contact the gambling company to ensure the funds were not withdrawn from the Roobet platform.
Ledger Hacking Incident
A review of the message sent to Roobet requested the gaming company to freeze the funds and cooperate in the ongoing investigation. In a subsequent report the Roobet spokesperson claimed that the funds can only be freezed if instructed by the local law enforcers.
The spokesperson requested the Ledger team to provide an official report from the law enforcers detailing the need for the funds to be frozen. This forced the customer to report the matter to the relevant authority.
Firstly, the hack victim submitted a report concerning the hack incident to London’s Action Fraud online portal. Also, the customer took immediate action to report the matter to NFIB.
Days after reporting the matter to law enforcement, the NFIB did not respond. The customers claimed that the NFIB responded on October 17, four weeks after reporting the matter.
In their address, NFIB officials regretted lacking a subordinate law enforcement unit to pursue the matter. Following the NFIB comment, the hack victim reported the matter to Binance.
Shortcomings in Recovery of Stolen Funds
A statement from a Binance spokesperson confirmed that the scammer had already withdrawn the funds from the platform. The spokesperson pledged cooperating with the law enforcer to trace the stolen funds.
After multiple attempts to recover the stolen funds became futile, the customer considered hiring the blockchain analytical firm AML Bot to trace the movement of his funds. He confessed to incurring roughly $1000 to pay security experts from AML Bots.
The hack victim believed that the investigation from AML Bot will assist in bringing the criminals to justice. A review of the AML Bot findings demonstrated that the criminals sent the stolen funds to the Roobet platform.
During the interview the hack victim shared the evidence demonstrating that all the attempts to recover the funds failed. The evidence provided by the disgraced investors included the email conversation with NFIB, Roobet, and Binance.
Also, the customer provided phone conversations with different law enforcement units. In his signing-off remarks, the hack victim admitted that apart from the UK, there are other countries lacking adequate fraud measures.
