Crypto hacker Monkey Drainer steals another 520 ETH worth of NFTs

November 05, 2022

On-chain investigator ZachXBT recently revealed that notorious scammer Monkey Drainer has caused chaos once more by stealing seven CryptoPunks and twenty Otherside NFTs worth $800,000.

PeckShield, a blockchain security company, has also confirmed the allegations by ZachXBT that a wallet named ‘Monkey Drainer’ had been used to commit the crime. The money was subsequently transferred from the stolen account to Tornado Cash, now-sanctioned Ethereum-based coin mixer.

Additionally, ZachXBT disclosed that the recent sim swap between AJT and Gabriel Leydon induced the attack by Monkey Drainer. The expert continued: “Prior to that, he’s had other huge attacks as well.”

Sleuth ZachXBT previously reported a similar phishing scammer for siphoning 700 ETH worth over $1 million and also alleged crypto influencer Lark Davis for pushing low-cap projects which are promoting such hacks.

As mentioned in report by TheCoinRise, victim 0x02a lost 36,000 USDC,1 CloneX, 1 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection, and 12 other non-fungible tokens (NFT) totaling around $150,000 while the other victim, 0x626, had more than $6.2 million in cryptocurrency, but only lost $220k as a result of rejecting the other transaction requests.

Monkey Drainer’s known methods

Known for developing fake cryptocurrency and NFT sites, Monkey Drainer is a hacker who uses stealing methods centered on phishing to steal money from victims. They gain access to users’ funds by their entry of sensitive information about their digital wallets and approval of transactions.

As reported by Chainalysis, October has become the worst month for crypto hacks on record. The most recent attack was on Deribit, a cryptocurrency platform losing $28M on its hot wallet including Team-Finance, and even on the exchange giant FTX where the users whose accounts linked to 3Commas suffered the attack. The blockchain data company said that, if things continue as they are, 2022 is likely to surpass 2021 as the biggest year for hacking ever.