Security News > 2023 > February > Scammers steal $4 million in crypto during face-to-face meeting

Ahad Shams, the co-founder of Web3 metaverse gaming engine startup Webaverse, discovered in late November 2022 that someone had stolen $4 million of his cryptocurrency - during a real world interaction.

What made this case different is that the scammers stole the funds from a newly created Trust Wallet account when Shams and a Webaverse colleague met in the lobby of a Rome hotel.

In a detailed statement posted on Twitter this week, Shams outlined how the scammers posed as possible investors, courted him over several weeks, arranged the meeting in Rome, convinced him to shift $4 million in crypto into the new Trust Wallet account, and eventually disappeared, followed by the funds minutes later.

"We aren't 100 percent sure as to technically how this happened yet, but in short it involved the scammers convincing us to move funds into a fresh wallet in order to provide 'proof of funds'," Shams wrote.

In the Webaverse case, Shams wrote that he was working to close a Series A fundraising round when he was contacted by man calling himself the lawyer for a person - "Joseph Safra" - who wanted to invest in Webaverse.

Shams wrote that while the crypto theft hurt his company - as losing $4 million would - Webaverse has enough money for the next 12 to 16 months and looking to raise more money.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/02/08/webaverse_crypto_stolen/