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Elderly US citizen loses $330M in Bitcoin theft

Elderly US citizen loses $330M in Bitcoin theft

GrafaGrafa2025/05/01 10:10
By:Mahathir Bayena

An elderly citizen in the United States has reportedly fallen victim to a social engineering attack that resulted in the theft of 3,520 Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC), valued at approximately $330.7 million as of April 28, 2025.

According to onchain analyst ZachXBT, the stolen funds were laundered quickly after being received in two transactions.

The attack marks one of the largest individual crypto thefts to date and ranks fifth among historical digital asset heists.

“The $330M in BTC was received in two transactions, then immediately distributed via peel chains,” explained Yehor Rudytsia, an onchain researcher at cybersecurity firm Hacken.

The laundering method, known as the peel chain technique, involves dividing large sums into smaller portions and moving them through multiple wallets to obscure their origin.

Hacken’s tool, Extractor, tracked $284 million worth of the stolen Bitcoin as it moved across over 300 wallets and more than 20 exchanges or payment platforms, including Binance.

The attacker reportedly converted large portions of the stolen BTC into Monero (CRYPTO:XMR), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that surged nearly 50% in value during the activity.

“Once funds are swapped into Monero, tracing becomes virtually impossible due to its privacy-preserving architecture,” stated Hakan Unal from Cyvers Alerts.

He added that the use of Monero significantly reduces the chance of asset recovery.

The attacker is believed to have pre-existing accounts across several exchanges and over-the-counter platforms, suggesting a high degree of planning.

Some funds were also bridged to Ethereum and distributed further, adding complexity to the investigation.

Experts have ruled out North Korea's Lazarus Group as the likely culprit.

“So far, we haven’t been able to confidently link this activity to any known hacker group,” Unal noted.

At the time of reporting, the Bitcoin price was $95,108.26.

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