Pink Drainer a Victim of 30000 Crypto Scam Following Retirement Crypto Hack
Pink Drainer, a notorious cybercriminal group, fell victim to an address poisoning scam, resulting in the loss of 10 Ether, equivalent to $30,000. This ironic incident was brought to light by MistTrack, a crypto compliance platform, on July 7. It serves as a reminder of the dangers that persist in the crypto space, even for those who perpetrate fraud themselves.
Address poisoning, the type of fraud employed in this case, involves the attacker sending a small amount of cryptocurrency from a wallet with an address similar to the target’s. The only difference is one symbol. The intention is to deceive the target into sending a large sum of money to the scammer’s address, mistakenly believing it to be their own.
MistTrack explained that the scammers utilized various tactics, such as using bots to track new transactions and identify addresses with similar first and last characters to the target’s address. The goal is to trick victims into pasting the scam address instead of the intended one. In Pink Drainer’s case, they fell for the wallet number trick, where the address was a mere copy of the previous one, resulting in the loss of 10 ETH.
Interestingly, this incident occurred just a month after Pink Drainer announced their retirement on May 17, having stolen over $75 million worth of crypto assets. Analysis of data from Dune Analytics reveals that Pink Drainer managed to embezzle $85.3 million worth of crypto in July 2023. It is surprising that even in their retired state, they are not immune to the scams they themselves perpetrated.
Bitcoin and other crypto investors are advised to double-check the wallet addresses before conducting transactions to avoid falling victim to address poisoning scams. This case serves as a clear example of the ongoing threats in the cryptocurrency era, where even the orchestrators of scams can become victims themselves.