Epic cryptocurrency hack ruins Sydney man’s retirement plans

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The account contained $104,000 in bitcoins before the hacker took it all. Photo / 123RF

A Sydney couple are due to retire seven years later than expected after losing more than $100,000 in a shocking scam.

Manu Kundra and his wife Shallu, 49, were devastated when they logged onto their cryptocurrency exchange in May last year to check how things were going.

Instead of seeing around $104,000 sitting there, which they knew was the value of his crypto wallet, there was only $16.87 left.

Manu Kundra and his wife Shallu. Photo / Provided

Transaction history records show that on May 30, more than 50 outgoing payments occurred, ranging from $1.13 to $24,000.

The problem was that he hadn’t made any transactions.

It turned out that scammers had cleaned out his cryptocurrency wallet and now, six months later, the couple have lost hope of getting their money back after investigations hit a dead end.

“Initially I was going to have to work until I was 58, now I will continue to work until I am 65,” Manu Kundra told news.com.au.

To make matters worse, if the money had remained in the account, it would have reached the colossal sum of $150,000.

Manu and his wife will have to postpone their retirement after losing the money. Photo / Provided

The father-of-two opened an account with Independent Reserve, an Australian cryptocurrency exchange, in 2017 when blockchains started to skyrocket.

He invested around $45,000 of his savings in the platform between February and April 2018.

He owned 0.25 bitcoin, 35 ethereum tokens and 40 litecoins.

Then the market crashed and Kundra stopped trading, but he let his investment sit in the account for several years.

In 2020, he saw his portfolio begin to rally again as the cryptocurrency entered another bull run.

It more than doubled its initial investment of $45,000 and was worth $104,000 in May of last year.

Kundra was quick to save his money when he realized he had been hacked.

The hacker had accessed Kundra’s account, changed the passwords, and set up two-factor authentication to lock it down.

He informed Independent Reserve, who tracked down the money and discovered that it had been sent to Binance, another cryptocurrency exchange.

The CEO of Independent Reserve personally contacted Binance Australia’s compliance team and asked them to freeze the funds.

But by then it was too late.

Police investigations revealed that the money was initially transferred to an account with an IP address in Turkey.

The money was then sent to another account in Nigeria where it has since disappeared for good.

NSW Police have confirmed to news.com.au that they are unable to pursue their investigation as the cybercriminals are outside of their jurisdiction.

At the cryptocurrency’s peak in November of last year, Kundra’s investment would have been worth the colossal sum of $150,000.

“It was part of my strategy to get money for my retirement,” Kundra said.

“Making $150,000 is about $15,000 a month, in just 10 years, that’s impossible.”

He will now have to continue working for another 17 years instead of just 10 years, which was his original intention.

And what is worse, he has now missed the opportunity to buy cryptocurrency cheaply.

“With this booming crypto market, you see your money going down every day. [by not having any crypto],” he said.

“It took me four months to get out of that kind of anxiety.”

Unfortunately Independent Reserve were unable to compensate Kundra as the breach had come to an end.

The Sydney family man initially had no idea how the hacker hacked into his account and feared his devices had been infected with malware, including spyware that tracked his keystrokes.

He employed an IT professional and they found no signs of malicious activity.

Unfortunately, he later discovered that the email address linked to his cryptocurrency account had been compromised in a large-scale data breach involving a million other people.

His email and phone number had been sold before being made public in June 2020.

According to the terms and conditions of the Independent Reserve, it is the customer’s responsibility to protect their credentials.

“You are solely responsible for maintaining and protecting the confidentiality and security of your account (including, but not limited to, your login credentials, two-factor authentication device, linked email account, any bank account used in connection with your account, telephone number and all information provided by you in connection with your account),” the contract states.

“We are not responsible for any unauthorized access to or use of your account (although you may not be aware of such unauthorized access), except to the extent that we have not taken reasonable measures to secure the platform.”

A spokesperson for the Independent Reserve told news.com.au: “At no time has there been any compromise or breach of the Independent Reserve’s systems or data.

“Independent Reserve followed all correct processes and procedures and acted in the best interests of the client at all times.

“IR actively promotes best practices regarding customer account security through regular warnings on its platform as well as publicly available information.”

$750 million worth of crypto stolen worldwide

A report from crypto data firm Chainalysis published last week found that cryptocurrency-based crime has skyrocketed in 2021.

Over $750 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from people like Kundra last year.

Fraudsters affiliated with North Korea were the worst, responsible for $400 million in cryptocurrency hacks in those 12 months.

Most of these scammers used legitimate centralized cryptocurrency exchanges to send the stolen funds and then transferred them to another untraceable account.

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