Thieves behind an NFT phishing scam that offered to animate NFTs including Bored Apes, Azuki, Sudoswap, and Doodles, have been found and named by crypto sleuth ZachXBT.
The two prolific criminals are believed to have repeated their scam multiple times since December 2021, leading to profits of over $2.5M.
Anatomy of an NFT scam
ZachXBT led an investigation into the theft of multiple NFTs since late last year, leading him to identify two young men living in Paris. The crypto sleuth named the two individuals as Mathys and Camile but did not supply surnames for the pair.
The conclusion of the ZachXBT investigation is the culmination of significant investigatory work which included on-chain analysis as well as the study of photographic evidence. While the two thieves appear to have been good at gaining victims’ confidence they were far less adept at covering their tracks.
Among the many clues, ZachXBT was able to exploit their Twitter accounts @Rxktv and @mtsgtb. Shortly after the publication of ZachXBT’s findings both accounts were no longer viewable to the public.
“One of them deactivated their Twitter and deleted incriminating Tweets. The other went private,” said ZachXBT on Twitter, Tuesday. “Regardless, all Tweets were saved offline before the article was published.”
The net grows tighter
At present both Mathys and Camile remain at large but the net continues to tighten on the pair.
According to Twitter user @Luchap2BTC at least one of the two is believed to have attended “42,” a computer programming school in France. On anecdotal evidence, it certainly appears that neither Mathys nor Camile were particularly skilled at making friends, as a number of former students have chimed in to relay unsavory stories about them.
The school is now looking into its records and recommends that anyone with further information contact the authorities.
Having wrapped up his investigation for now ZachXBT went on to conclude, “Hopefully in the near future we will see some form of legal action taken against Mathys and Camille for the financial harm they have perpetrated on so many people.”
Judging on the social media response, some kind of action does seem likely.