FBI seizes $100K in NFTs from scammer following ZachXBT investigation

FBI seizes $100K in NFTs from scammer following ZachXBT investigation


The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has seized two non-fungible tokens (NFTs) price greater than $100,000 and 86.5 Ether (ETH) from a reported phishing scammer.

The alleged scammer in query, Chase Senecal — often known as Horror (HZ) on-line — was initially uncovered through a prolonged investigation by unbiased blockchain sleuth ZachXBT posted again in September.

In the FBI’s official notification posted on Feb. 3, it outlined that Seneca’s property — which additionally included an Audemars Piguet (AP) Royal Oak Watch price $41,000 — was “seized for federal forfeiture for violation of federal law.”

The FBI’s notification didn’t element a lot different data on the ordeal aside from noting that all the property was seized on Oct. 24. The particular NFTs embrace Bored Ape Yacht Club#9658, and Doodle #3114 and had been valued at $95,495 and $9,361 on the time of seizure.

The 86.5 ETH was valued at $116,433 on the time of seizure, however is now price $144,000 on the time of writing.

It is unclear what the complete scope of authorized proceedings which have taken place in opposition to Senecal are at this stage. However, in response to the FBI’s legislation enforcement bulletin, federal forfeiture is a legislation enforcement software that permits the federal government to “remove—without compensation for the individual—ownership of property involved in a crime.”

“It may occur in a civil procedure, like a lawsuit against the item, or after the conviction of an individual in a criminal trial,” the FBI states.

While the FBI has not come out with an official tip of the hat to ZachXBT, the on-chain sleuth famous through Twitter on Feb. 3 that the property seizure did “come as a result” of his investigation.

“I look forward to hopefully seeing more phishing scammers suffer a similar fate in the future for harming so many people in this space,” ZachXBT wrote.

With the seizure of a Bored Ape NFT, folks in the group have joked that the FBI will change its profile image to Ape #9658.

Photoshopped FBI profile pic: @CryptoWithNick on Twitter

Notably, the flashy AP watch was one of many key identifiers that helped ZachXBT unmask Senecal’s id and on-chain exercise through the investigation.

In a medium publish from Sept. 2, ZachXBT defined that after seeing Horroz (HZ) brag in regards to the new watch on social media, he requested “around a few mutual friends who sell watches” and ultimately managed to get in contact with the one that bought that particular AP watch to Senecal.

Unfortunately for Senecal, the cost was mentioned to have been made on the blockchain through the usage of USD Coin (USDC).

“The address HZ used to pay the watch seller $47.5k was DIRECTLY funded by multiple addresses used to scam people with hacked Twitter accounts such as @deekaymotion, @Zeneca_33, @ezu_xyz, [and] @JRNYclub,” ZachXBT wrote.

This isn’t the primary time ZachXBT’s analysis has performed a key position in serving to authorities authorities. In October, France’s nationwide cyber unit cited ZachXBT’s work in serving to it catch and cost a bunch of alleged fraudsters on suspicion of stealing $2.5 million price of NFTs through phishing scams.





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