Crypto sleuth probes attacker behind Bored Ape heist

Law enforcement detained the wrong person for a 2022 scam that pilfered more than $1 million worth of Bored Ape non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cybersecurity researcher ZachXBT said. 

In a May 9 X post, ZachXBT said he identified the wallet behind the scam and linked it to an X account that has since been deleted. 

But in 2023, law enforcement detained Sam Curry, a former Yuga Labs security researcher, at an airport as a suspect in the incident, ZachXBT said. Yuga Labs is the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. 

“It’s unfortunate to see how a security researcher was detained when stronger leads on a threat actor potentially responsible exist,” ZachXBT said.

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Anonymous attacker

In December 2022, an anonymous attacker stole 14 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, which at the time traded for roughly $86,000 each, according to data from CoinSlam.

Law enforcement then “mistakenly reviewed logs from OpenSea which included [Curry’s] home IP address and used this to incorrectly link him as the suspect,” ZachXBT wrote.

“In reality as part of his security work at Yuga, [Curry] had been investigating the theft and used a private key put in the JavaScript of the website by the threat actor,” ZachXBT said. 

ZachXBT said he used forensic tracing — including reconstructing the flow of funds through Tornado, an Ethereum mixer — to identify a person he alleges is a likely suspect in the 2022 theft.

He said law enforcement officials should “request all data related to [the individual’s] social media accounts” and dig into on-chain transactions associated with their alleged wallet. 

Launched in 2021, Bored Ape Yacht Club is among the most valuable NFT collections, with a cumulative market capitalization of more than $300 million, according to data from CoinGecko.  

As of May 9, Bored Ape NFTs trade for roughly $30,000 each, according to NFT marketplace OpenSea. Individual NFTs vary in price due to unique characteristics. 

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