The Australian Federal Police has teamed up with Chainalysis to identify more than 2,000 hacked cryptocurrency wallets owned by Australians.
Australia’s national police agency, the Australian Federal Police, has partnered with blockchain forensics specialist Chainalysis to combat cryptocurrency fraudsters as the number of hacked cryptocurrency wallets belonging to Australians has surpassed 2,000.
On August 5 press releaseThe Australian Financial Crime Agency said it had joined so-called “Operation Spincaster,” an initiative targeting criminals using a tactic known as “consent phishing,” a scam that has seen threat actors enrich themselves by stealing cryptocurrency from non-custodial wallets.
While it is unclear whether the Australian intelligence agency has been able to recover some of the stolen assets, it said that BTC Markets, Binance, Crypto.com, Ebonex, Independent Reserve, OKX, SwyftX, and Wayex cooperated to identify and support Australian victims, thereby preventing further financial losses. The Australian intelligence agency urged Australians to be vigilant against consent phishing and to exercise caution when dealing with cryptocurrency transactions.
Phishing attacks continue to rise
Consent phishing is a particularly insidious form of cryptocurrency theft. Scammers trick victims into agreeing to transactions that give them control of the victims’ wallets.
The tactic is common in both investment and romance scams, where victims are lured with promises of high returns or manipulated into pretending to be in a romantic relationship, AFP says.
According to police, criminals have made more than $4 billion in cryptocurrency since May 2021 using consent-only phishing attacks. As crypto.news previously reported, the cryptocurrency sector suffered a series of devastating attacks in July, culminating in losses of around $266 million, up 51% from the $176 million reported in June.