Cryptocurrency

Kraken builds pretend crypto account to ‘bait’ fraudsters

May 11, 2023
2 minutes read

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United States crypto trade Kraken has offered a novel methodology for flagging nefarious wallets — constructing a pretend crypto account on the trade to “rip-off bait” unhealthy actors.

Tweeting on Could 10, widespread streamer Kitboga — whose content material revolves round annoying scammers— revealed that Kraken had constructed him a “customized surroundings” which he used to frustrate a scammer impersonating President Joe Biden, who he beforehand had a run-in with round a yr in the past.

Within the accompanying video clip, Kitboga may be seen with round $450,000 price of Bitcoin (BTC) in his Kraken-built pretend crypto account.

The scammer then sees the funds by way of video distant laptop screen-sharing software program that he supposedly duped Kitboga’s character into downloading, and will get very excited a few huge potential payday.

Nonetheless, the punchline comes when Kitboga, who’s portraying an aged lady within the video, incorrectly enters the scammer’s pockets handle earlier than sending over all the funds. In consequence, the scammer turns into extremely infuriated and begins berating Kitboga with a slew of swear phrases.

Notably, the scammer seems to have provided a Kraken-hosted BTC pockets handle, which primarily permits the crypto trade to establish them and flag their exercise.

The thought behind this collaboration appears to have been made doable by Kraken’s chief safety officer Nick Percoco and Kitboga.

Kitboga has 1.2 million followers on Twitch and three million followers on YouTube. His content material usually revolves round comedically losing the time of name middle scammers by taking part in a bunch of non-tech-savvy characters.

In some circumstances, he has additionally managed to get their doubtful web sites taken down by reporting the fraud to the internet hosting firms these web sites are saved with.

“On a regular basis there are scammers profiting from folks. I name them to waste their time, stroll folks by their ‘script’ and lies, report data after I can, and in any other case make gentle of a darkish scenario,” his YouTube profile reads.

Cointelegraph reached out to Kitboga for remark. 

In a video on Could 1, Kitboga highlighted a brand new BTC-related “social safety rip-off” that targets victims by way of e-mail or textual content message claiming that unusual purchases have been made with their financial institution accounts.

Associated: April’s crypto scams, exploits and hacks result in $103M misplaced — CertiK

Nonetheless, when victims name the numbers offered, the scammers declare that their identities have been stolen and that they should withdraw all their money, purchase BTC and ship the funds to a “safe authorities pockets.”

Kitboga clearly had enjoyable with these scammers by pretending to get their “grandson” to purchase 10,000 BTC and ship it to the flawed handle.

Journal: $3.4B of Bitcoin in a popcorn tin — The Silk Highway hacker’s story