A gang of Call of
Duty players is suspected of masterminding a plan to steal more than $3
million in cryptocurrency. Citing unsealed court documents, the Chicago
Sun-Times reports that the group — which includes a Dolton, IL man and a
man from Bloomington, IL — is alleged to have hacked into cryptocurrency
wallets after gaining access to the victims’ phones.
‘Forced to Cooperate’
According to an
application for a warrant to search the Dolton man’s home, the Bloomington man
informed the FBI that he met members of the group online while playing warfare
simulation video game Call of Duty. He claimed that they forced him to
partake by “SWATing”
him– a slang that means raising a false alarm about a crime purportedly
happening at a given address to trigger a response from law enforcement. He
added that members of the group gave him details of victims to enable him to
take over more than a hundred phones with the ultimate aim of stealing funds
from the victims’ crypto wallets.
The practice, known as
“SIM hijacking” is becoming increasingly widespread as it is relatively
low-tech with potentially high rewards if the stolen phone numbers are linked
to crypto wallets. CCN recently reported
that Bitcoin investor Michael Terpin sued AT&T for $224 million after
losing $24 million worth of cryptocurrency to so-called SIM hijackers who
managed to transfer his telephone number and subsequently reset the password to
his crypto wallet.
The FBI affidavit
shows that San Francisco-based Augur reported
on December 12, 2016, that their investors and employees were being targeted by
cryptocurrency thieves. Augur’s protocol runs an online betting platform where
a wide range of betting options exist using cryptocurrency.
FBI Gets
Involved
Names of the suspects
listed in the affidavit have not been mentioned and they have not been charged
with any crimes yet. According to the FBI, the gang is suspected of
stealing at least $3.3 million in various cryptocurrencies including about
$805,000 worth of REP tokens by moving stolen tokens through cryptocurrency
exchanges and mixers before sending them to their own wallets in the form of ether and bitcoin.
Court records show that
FBI agents were at the Dolton man’s home on August 1, seizing phones and
computers. They interviewed the Bloomington suspect in March 2017. The
affidavit contains transcripts of messages exchanged online between suspected
ring members.
The unnamed Bloomington
man has told the Chicago
Sun-Times in an online interview that he considers himself a victim in the
matter. He claims to have never profited from crypto-hacking, stating that he
has always cooperated with Augur and the FBI, and that the number of phones he
helped to hack was substantially less than 100.
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