In the relatively new frontier of digital financing, the choice of burglary weapons is a laptop, not a gun. With a huge network to work in, it is an impossible task for law enforcement personnel to track fraudulent activities.
The good news is that there are savvy programmers who step in and do the right thing. In recent news, a cyber vigilante who wants to remain anonymous shared his experiences on tracking scammers. A DeFi scammers group managed to use loopholes in the StableMagnet and steal $25 million. Coordinating with law enforcement, the cyber vigilante tracked down the group and recovered the money. It was returned to investors.
StableMagnet, like other platforms, has attracted naïve investors who are promised higher returns in comparison to stablecoin. In an event called “rug pulling”, over $25 million invested by 1000 users was siphoned off. The vigilante found problems with the code while he was reviewing the project’s legitimacy and got involved. He apparently missed alerts posted on Twitter revealing system vulnerabilities. Being an ethical hacker, he took up the job of hunting down the scammer group and retrieving investor funds.
He was able to locate accounts on GitHub and track down group members using various accounts on social media. The group was Chinese and based in Hong Kong. He flew to Manchester, England, at his own expense and contacted law enforcement. He managed to get there in time before the group moved elsewhere. Manchester Police took quick action and took most scammers into custody.
