Fake Ledger App On Mac Store Steals 5.9 BTC From Musician G. Love

Musician Garrett Dutton, known as G. Love, lost nearly 6 Bitcoin(BTC) — worth more than $424,000 — after entering his seed phrase into a fraudulent Ledger app downloaded from Apple's Mac App Store.

G. Love's Bitcoin Theft

Dutton [explained](Garrett Dutton) in an Apr. 11 post on X that the incident occurred while migrating his Ledger setup to a new Apple computer. He searched the App Store for Ledger Live, found an app that appeared authentic, and followed its prompts. The app then requested his 24-word recovery phrase.

Once he entered it, attackers drained his wallet. Dutton said the stolen funds represented a decade of savings. "I lost 5.9 BTC all I had for ten years I worked on this," he wrote.

On-chain investigator ZachXBTtraced the 5.92 BTC through addresses identified as KuCoin deposit wallets.

Asked whether recovery was possible, ZachXBT said he did not expect KuCoin to intervene.

He accused the exchange of performing compliance only when convenient, pointing to its loss of an EU MiCA license in Feb. 2026 — just three months after obtaining it from Austria's financial regulator.

ZachXBT added that illicit services continued to exploit broker and personal accounts on the platform. The large number of deposit addresses, he said, suggested the thieves may have routed funds through an instant exchange.

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Crypto Scams in 2026

Beau, head of security at Pudgy Penguins, warned that users should never enter a hardware wallet seed phrase on any internet-connected device. He said scammers distribute fake wallet apps through email, deceptive ads, and even physical mail.

The incident fits a broader pattern. Phishing and impersonation scams surged roughly 1,400% year-over-year across the 2025–2026 period, and personal wallet theft accounted for roughly $713M in losses across 158,000 incidents in 2025. In Apr. 2026, U.S., U.K., and Canadian law enforcement disrupted a $45M global crypto fraud operation targeting victims through fake notifications that appeared to come from legitimate apps.

Fake wallet apps have become one of the most common vectors. Scammers have managed to list counterfeit wallet applications on both the Apple App Store and Google Play that look professional, run without crashing, and carry fabricated reviews.

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