Xinyi Luo
Xinyi Luo is CoinDesk Layer 2's features and opinion intern. She does not currently hold any cryptocurrencies.
A phishing scammer known as Monkey Drainer has stolen the equivalent of about 700 ether (ETH) worth roughly $1 million in crypto and non-fungible tokens in the past 24 hours, according to a prominent on-chain sleuth known as ZachXBT.
1/ Over the past 24 hrs ~700 ETH ($1m) has been stolen by the phishing scammer known as Monkey Drainer.
They recently surpassed 7300 transactions from their drainer wallet after being around for only a few months. pic.twitter.com/6vAYBiqCxQ
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 25, 2022
The two biggest victims, 0x02a and 0x626, lost a combined $370,000 after signing transactions on phishing sites run by the prolific scammer, according to ZachXBT. More specifically, 0x02a reportedly lost 1 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, 1 CloneX, 36,000 USDC and 12 other non-fungible tokens (NFT) worth in total around $150,000.
Those two victims were among many who've had their funds stolen by Monkey Drainer. ZachXBT tweeted that the total amount stolen in the scam exceeds $3.5 million, and is rapidly increasing day by day.
ZachXBT warned users to “please be extra diligent before visiting unknown sites, connecting your wallet and signing transactions.”
Back in August, ZachXBT uncovered another phishing scam in which people were defrauded out of more than $2.5 million worth of NFTs. Five people connected to the scam, which involved the BAYC collection, were indicted in Paris earlier in October.
