Phishing Scammer Suddenly Returns $9.3 Million to Victim After Stealing $24 Million in September Attack

First noticed by Scam Sniffer on July 13, the scammer used Dai (DAI) $1.00 stablecoin to return the funds across two transactions last week.

A phishing scammer has returned nearly $9.3 million to a victim after stealing $24 million from them in a phishing attack last September.

Noticed by Scam Sniffer on July 13, the scammer used Dai (DAI) stablecoin to return the funds across two transactions last week.

The first transfer saw $5.23 million returned on July 8, while another $4.04 million was sent on July 13 at 12:06 pm UTC, Etherscan data shows.

The victim fell for a $24.2 million phishing scam on Sept. 6, 2023, losing 9,579 Lido Staked Ether (stETH) and 4,850 Rocket Pool (rETH) tokens.

The victim enabled token approvals to the scammer by signing “Increase Allowance” transactions, Scam Sniffer noted at the time of the incident. Allowance is an ERC-20 token feature that enables a third party to have the right to spend tokens belonging to that owner.

Crypto market data platform CoinMarketCap and other industry players have flagged the loophole, noting that it can potentially allow anonymous developers to deploy malicious smart contracts to scam users.

The recent $9.3 million return equates to a 38.4% fund return at Sept. 6 prices, though the 14,429 in staked-Ether would have been worth $47.5 million at today’s prices.

Onchain data shows the Dai came through an address labeled as Railgun Relay — an intermediary for the privacy protocol — shortly before being transferred to the victim.

Scam Sniffer pointed Cointelegraph to an onchain message of the hacker reaching out to the victim via a different wallet address on July 6.

"Hello, I am the guy who took your money," he said. "I want to give the moneyback."

Etherscan data shows that the scammer’s wallet address now has a little over $3 million in funds after the $9 million transfer.

Nearly 99% of those funds comprise the METAGALAXY LAND (MEGALAND) token from the BNB Chain.

Phishing scammers stole almost $300 million worth of crypto from 324,000 victims in 2023, Scam Sniffer’s 2023 Wallet Drainers Report revealed.

In 2023, Inferno Drainer and MS Drainer were the two most notorious phishing scammers, stealing $81 million and $59 million, respectively.

Pink Drainer became one of the most prominent phishing scammers this year, stealing over $85 million before it shut down in May.