A scammer who stole $24.2 million from a victim has surprisingly returned $9.3 million to them. The funds were sent in two transactions using the DAI stablecoin, with the first transaction on July 8 amounting to $5.23 million, and the second transaction on July 13 amounting to $4.04 million.
The theft happened on September 6, 2023, through a phishing scam where 9,579 Lido Staked Ether (stETH) and 4,850 Rocket Pool (rETH) tokens were siphoned away, currently valued at about $47 million. The victim unknowingly granted the scammer access to their tokens by signing the “IncreaseAllowance” feature inherent to ERC-20 tokens, allowing authorized third parties to spend tokens on their behalf.
Last year, Scam Sniffer documented the incident on X, highlighting the victim’s loss and the transaction details visualized on Etherscan. The post revealed that the victim gave token approvals to the scammer by signing “increaseAllowance” transactions, sparking debates on the potential risks associated with this feature.
In a recent update, Scam Sniffer informed the crypto community that the scammer had returned $9.27 million in DAI to the victim, without providing any explanation for the gesture. The return of 38.4% of the stolen funds may offer some relief to the victim, although recovering the rest of the funds could prove challenging due to the use of a privacy protocol in the return transactions, obscuring the scammer’s fund flows.
While the motive behind returning a portion of the stolen funds remains unclear, this development sheds light on the complexities and risks associated with cryptocurrency transactions. It serves as a reminder for users to remain vigilant and cautious when dealing with digital assets to avoid falling victim to such scams in the future.