A bit over one 12 months after numerous virtual currency traders fell sufferer to the crypto Con game that used the identify of the favored Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) present to trick individuals into investing in SQUID token, a virtual currency that, actually, had no connection to the present.
Curiously, a journalist’s investigation has delivered new proof as to the whereabouts of the Con game’s originators. Because it occurs, the debut of the well-known Korean Netflix present Squid Recreation in 2021 proved an ideal alternative for scammers to create an environment friendly virtual currency Con game that has value its victims an aggregated $16 million in monetary loss.
The crypto scammers launched a token eponymous with the favored present with an intention to spice up its worth and promote as a lot as potential, with so successful that even main publications just like the BBC, CNBC, and Yahoo, took discover, as Brokers despatched out a warning to merchants.
Investigation begins
Thirty days later, they disappeared with hundreds of thousands, however investigative expertise journalist Janhoi McGregor and tech professional Ciaran O’Connor determined to seek out the id of the SQUID scammer, reporting the outcomes of their investigation in a podcast series ‘Squid Scam: Chasing the NFT Con Artists.’
Within the podcast, McGregor revealed {that a} dialogue in a victims’ Telegram chatroom had given him the primary suspects within the case, as he acquired a video of the rug pull supposedly taking place dwell on a pc monitor, watermarked with what seems to be the identify of a couple of the suspects, accompanied by a message:
“Thanks for making me rich.”
Checking the metadata, O’Connor confirmed that the video was real, recorded certainly on the time the rug pull was happening. Afterward, McGregor and O’Connor discovered that the Squid Fraud authors had carried out a smaller, nearly an identical, Con game a number of weeks earlier to ‘test the waters’ resulting in extra clues.
Squid ‘scamception’
Within the meantime, an alleged authorized agency was charging individuals cash by their web site, promising to sue the Squid scammers however disappearing with their cash, indicating that these scammers might be the identical because the rug pull individuals.
In the meantime, a Reddit profile, created 4 days earlier than the rug pull and nonetheless energetic ten days after it, was urging the victims of the rug pull to affix the supposed authorized motion marketed on the web site.
Title comes up
To hold out this fraud, the scammer used a site identify firm that had no concept its companies have been getting used for these functions. Amid the info handed over by the area identify firm, extra clues appeared, together with two e-mail addresses, an IP handle, two phone numbers, an precise bodily handle, and even a reputation.
Additional investigation linked this particular person with scams courting again to 2013. Making an attempt to attract extra info, the investigators despatched a message to a couple of the e-mail addresses that got here up with a reputation. The recipient instantly opened the e-mail, revealing a location in Hong Kong with 86% certainty.
On the similar time, the suspect’s identify was linked to the expertise firm established in April 2021 in Guangdong province in South China, the applying for the dissolution of which was filed solely six days after the investigators despatched the phishing e-mail to the rug pull Con game suspect.
Confronting the scammer
Narrowing down the handle to the precise workplace block, McGregor determined to ask an area correspondent to affix in on the investigation, upon which she scoped out the constructing the place the linked firm was registered, discovering the actions and a possible handle of the suspect in Hong Kong.
The investigators determined to go to Hong Kong to attempt to get face-to-face with the scammer. Sadly, as they arrived on the location, they discovered nobody. A safety guard revealed that the police had come to the house in reference to the Con game about six months earlier than.
This was sufficient proof for McGregor that he was on course however was fearful about his security. The native correspondent known as the quantity linked with the corporate registered in Guangdong, however the one who answered denied every thing.
Once they known as once more, the quantity was disconnected, which indicated they have been certainly earlier speaking to the particular person linked to the Con game, and who was now conscious that they have been on their tail. In the end, McGregor was pressured to report his findings and go away the remainder of the investigation to the police.
