- A $4.2 million scam widely reported in Canada never happened, say police
- The alleged theft involving two teenagers was picked up by several Canadian outlets
- The situation is reminiscent of Craig Wright’s pineapple hack, although it has crucial differences
We’re used to hearing about crypto scams that have taken place, but here’s a turn-up for the books: someone faked a crypto scam and duped news outlets into reporting on it. Hamilton police have confirmed that a story involving two teenagers and the supposed theft of $4.2 million in crypto, which ended up on the website of prominent Canadian news outlet Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) among others, was fake, with CBC being duped by a hoax email. Stories about hoax crypto hacks are rare, but the case brings a certain pineapple hack to mind given certain similarities.
Felon and Gaze
CBC was duped when it obtained a news release about the alleged arrest of two teenagers over a huge crypto theft, although the source seems to be an email referencing the supposed arrest. The Hamilton Police, in collaboration with the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force, had reportedly joined forces to apprehend the two 17-year-olds, who went by the aliases “Felon” and “Gaze.”
The pair were supposedly responsible for stealing $4.2 million in cryptocurrency, which they used to acquire the sought-after Instagram username “@zombie.” The news of the teenagers’ arrest quickly spread through various crypto publications, but Hamilton Police Service has declared the entire narrative, from the alleged heist to the arrest, is a fabrication.
In an official statement, the police stated, “[We] can confirm this investigation did not occur and the email did not originate from the Hamilton Police Service. The CBC has taken down the original story and now redirects the URL to a new article explaining how their reporter received a deceptive email, indicating that the information was a hoax.
Not the First Fake Crypto Crime
The issue is reminiscent in some ways of the hack supposedly suffered by Craig Wright in February 2020 when $1.1 billion in cryptocurrencies was allegedly stolen from. Wright says that a hacking gang stole the funds in a computer hack featuring a pineapple WiFi hacking device, after which he wiped his system against police advice, losing any chance to trace the gang.
Wright is using the case to sue a plethora of blockchain developers for the coins back, but everything from his ownership of the coins to the hack itself is flawed by a lack of evidence, and what evidence there is is almost certainly fraudulent. The difference in this case is that the police have investigated, although they have found nothing and refuse to comment on it.
This is even more staggering given that the theft is the biggest and most unique in British history, and yet not even the local newspapers reported it. While both the pineapple hack and the Hamilton hack never happened, it’s telling that one country’s news outlets fell for the scam while another’s didn’t.
