Hackers cleaned out a scammer’s wallets, stealing nearly $ 5 million

One of the biggest victims of the mass thefts from Ledger hardware crypto wallets turned out to be a fraudster. Analysts at Chainalysis determined that the owner of the three compromised wallets had organized the illegal schemes himself but ultimately lost 60 bitcoins—currently worth about $ 4.8 million.

The scammer earned the money in the wallets through a so-called «task-completion» scheme. Hired participants were paid to simulate sales and write fake reviews for real products. Over time, the participants were artificially put into a «negative balance,» and to receive the promised payments, they were forced to deposit their own funds.

On September 22, the organizer transferred the accumulated funds to three separate addresses in the Ledger system. By October 9, unknown attackers had emptied all three wallets, making one transfer from each to the same address. Chainalysis has confirmed that this address is currently flagged as holding the stolen bitcoins.

This incident occurred amid a major scandal surrounding the French manufacturer of Ledger hardware crypto wallets. The company acknowledged a series of asset thefts from device owners totaling $ 90 million—primarily in Southeast Asian countries.

The scandal broke in early October when several anonymous blockchain analysts and the device owners themselves revealed alarming findings. Upon opening the wallets' casings, they discovered spy chips that captured screenshots and transmitted seed phrases to unknown criminals—that is, the keys to all stored crypto assets.