ZachXBT is back with yet another exposé.
This time, a Canadian scammer known as Yahya has been exposed by the pseudonymous on-chain sleuth for their alleged involvement in 17+ SIM swaps, which resulted in the theft of more than $4.5 million.
ZachXBT Unmasks Fraudster Yahya
ZachXBT discovered that Yahya’s role involved conducting account searches on various platforms, particularly X/Twitter, using his panel. This enabled the scammer Skenkir to identify potential targets in the United States for SIM swap attacks.
As compensation for his services, Yahya was entitled to a percentage of the funds obtained through each successful attack. In July 2023, a notable incident occurred when Yahya, in collaboration with HZ, a scammer whose assets had been seized by the FBI, defrauded an individual named Amir of $250,000 (equivalent to 136 ETH). They had fraudulently claimed to be selling access to Yahya’s control panel, which inadvertently exposed Yahya’s wallet address in the process.
Upon analyzing Yahya’s address tied to the Amir payment, ZachXBT identified a common thread – the same address was reused for the panel scam as for the SIM swaps payments, effectively linking all of his activities.
In total, he received 390+ ETH (worth around $720K) to his address from more than 17 SIM swap attacks.
The crypto detective cited three examples, which involved sim swapping a GCG team member, Bitboy Crypto aka Ben Armstrong, Slingshot, and PleasrDAO core team member Jamis, who recently suffered a traumatic brain injury.
According to ZachXBT, Yahya spent thousands of dollars buying watches and unreleased Juice WRLD songs such as Dark Tints, Biscotti in the Air, Oxy in the Dark, and No Jumper. The crypto detective also said the scammer showed little remorse for his actions when confronted by people.
He also found that before becoming entangled in unlawful activities, Yahya made contributions to Benzinga, a Detroit-based financial news website, as an SMM. ZachXBT said it is puzzling why someone would willingly take the risk of conducting lookups for SIM swaps when all the trails eventually lead back to them.
“I hope some of this can help serve as a basis for action against these scammers who have harmed many people in the space with SIM swaps and phishing. Chat records and other things have been archived and will be happily provided to victims.”
SIM Swap Attacks
In an earlier investigation, ZachXBT uncovered that prominent figures such as OpenAI’s CTO, Mira Murati, Daniel Alegre, the CEO of Bored Ape, and the Aptos Foundation were among the 54 high-profile individuals who fell victim to SIM swap attacks. Collectively, these victims suffered losses exceeding $13 million.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter account was hacked last month following a SIM swap attack.
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