Investors Found “Rug-Pull” Scammers And Returned Some ETH

As we reported yesterday, there were three DeFi Rug-pulls in one day but investors found some of the scammers and managed to return some of the ETH so let’s read more in today’s crypto news.

The Ethereum DeFi space experienced three defi “rug-pulls” or a type of scam that hit $1.2 million worth of losses for unfortunate investors. Taking advantage of the recent developments, some individuals or groups conducted three separate exit scams which resulted in hundreds affected. The attackers conducted “pre-sales” for their projects where ETH would be raised from willing investors and then later, the projects release the coins in the pre-sale but the money got drained to an external wallet and sold. The projects that did see this on Friday alone were DeTrade Fund, DeFib, and iBase/YFFS. Other projects did something similar in the past few months.

$DTF #scam #rugpull #criminals

Message to DTF scammers. You have 24h to refund all ETH to presale participants. If not then you will be reported to law enforcement institutions. I have information about you, starting with that you are Lithuanians. You have 24h!

— Artura$ (@ArturiQo) December 12, 2020

The scamming was done by members of the community so the investors that were affected by these scams, forced the operators to return the capital stolen. DeTrade Fund was the biggest scam on Friday as it promised to be a platform that allowed users to earn profits by contributing capital to the company’s arbitrate system.

The operators of the scam stole about 1400 ETH raised in the pre-sale leaving prominent crypto investors and traders out about $1,000,000. It doesn’t come as a surprise so DeTrade Fund’s operators started to run again and hackers hopped on. One Twitter user named “Artura$” determined that DeTrade fund’s true operators were from Lithuania and found other evidence that would result in the arrest of the scammers.

What is the most amount of $ETH you lost in a single rug pull in 2020?

I lost 20 ETH in BetHero

— Fonship is a joke (@fonship) December 10, 2020

The tactic worked since after the tweet, addresses that were affiliated with the scammer distributed hundreds of ETH back to pre-sale participants. Reports indicated that about 70 percent of all funds that were stolen and re-distributed to the ones that bought in. The rest of the funds were mixed via Tornado Cash and are going to be returned as investors found out.

A similar tactic was used to force scammers of rebasing coins based on Ethereum that stole hundreds of thousands to issue a “partial refund.” The thousands of dollars worth of ETH involved iBase/YFFS is still at large. Considering the recent efforts to track down those involved in the previously mentioned scams and could be a matter of time before the funds are returned as well. As the thread from a crypto trader “Fonship” outlined, the three DeFi rug-pulls are the latest in a series of attacks that the traders experienced this year so investors will have to keep their heads up when investing.