Sextortion crypto scammers generate around $500,000 in 4 months

As law enforcement tries to curb several patterns of crypto crimes in the crypto space, sextortion crypto scammers are the latest to begin distorting order in the crypto world.

SophosLabs, alongside Cipher Trace in a study, revealed that sextortion crypto scammers are making gains recently, garnering around $500,000 between September last year and January.

Sextortion crypto scammers likely to be big criminals

Reportedly, these sextortion crypto scammers thrive through blackmail threatening victims of revealing sexual information about them to friends and family.

They send spam messages claiming that the victim’s computer has been hacked, and they have information (video) of them visiting adult websites. These scammers demand as much as $800 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) be transferred to a wallet address.

An investigation into these crimes by Cipher Trace and SophosLabs revealed that the criminals behind the sextortion scams are linked to an established organized network. Wallet addresses also analyzed by the researchers also linked to some sort of criminal enterprise that funds illegal or converts Bitcoin to fiat.

Also, the addresses these scammers used at one point transacted in the dark web marketplace, stolen credit card data hawkers, and other illegal activities. These scammers also managed to play their game well, manipulating how their proceeds were shared as SophosLab revealed that tracing where the money has gotten to now is a difficult task.

Crypto scam surge amidst global pandemic

Around 20 of the addresses these scammers used had IP data linked to them. But these were connected to VPN or Tor exit nodes, making geolocation impossible. However, as much as the sextortion scam pays, ransomware attacks still pay more, according to SophosLabs. Although sextortion also accounts for a significant amount in scammers’ revenue.

With the outrageous coronavirus pandemic the world is currently plunged in, crypto scams have continued to surge. Scammers exploit victims using various guise like charity, work from home, coronavirus cure to exploit victims and dupe them of their assets.

Cryptopolitan has reported several scam operations criminals have perpetrated this COVID-19 season.