An alleged crypto scammer has reportedly lost about $4.8 million in Bitcoin ($BTC) after his Ledger (@Ledger) wallet was compromised. The victim lost more than 60 BTC, according to blockchain
An alleged crypto scammer has reportedly lost about $4.8 million in Bitcoin ($BTC) after his Ledger (@Ledger) wallet was compromised. The victim lost more than 60 BTC, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, making him one of the largest known victims of a wider theft tied to tampered Ledger devices sold by the reseller CryptoBilis.
Chainalysis said the funds came from a so-called task scam. In this type of fraud, participants were paid to create fake sales and reviews for real products. A "negative balance" then appeared, and they were told they had to deposit their own money to receive payment.
According to Chainalysis, the scammer moved the proceeds to three Ledger addresses on September 22. On October 9, the thief emptied all three addresses, sending the funds from each in a single transaction to the same wallet. That receiving wallet has been reported as linked to stolen funds.
Because Bitcoin's ledger is public, investigators can follow funds between addresses. Identifying who controls a wallet, however, requires additional evidence, such as exchange records or intelligence reports.
The loss is part of a larger incident. Ledger confirmed that a device tied to the thefts contained an unauthorized hardware implant, and said all known cases involve wallets sold by CryptoBilis, a reseller operating in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ledger said its internal systems and direct sales channels remain unaffected.
Total losses have not been confirmed by Ledger. CoinDesk reported that on-chain researcher Specter estimated more than $86 million was stolen from hundreds of wallets, though the figure was not independently verified. Blockchain analytics firm Bitquery later put the total at $102.0 million taken from 324 wallets across six chains. Neither figure is an official Ledger assessment.
Ledger asked CryptoBilis to pause sales and shipments. It advised customers who bought devices from the reseller in the past 90 days not to set them up. Those who have already activated a wallet should consider moving assets to a new Ledger signer with a new seed, the company said.
It remains unclear exactly how and when the devices were tampered with, and whether the implant explains every reported loss. The case shows that a hardware wallet bought through a third-party channel may not be secure, and that stolen funds from illicit sources can also be lost in such attacks.
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