Haunts Me To This Day The Crypto Project Hacked For $4 Million From A Hotel Lobby

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The co-founder of metaverse game engine Web3 Webaverse has revealed he was the victim of a $4 million crypto hack after encountering scammers posing as investors in a hotel lobby in Rome.

The bizarre aspect of the story, according to co-founder Ahad Shams, is that the crypto was stolen from a newly created Trust Wallet and the hack took place during the meeting at some point.

He claims that the thieves could not have seen the private key, nor was he connected to a public Wi-Fi network at the time.

The thieves managed to gain access while taking a picture of the wallets balance, Shams believes.

The letter, which was shared on Twitter on February 7, contains statements from Webaverse and Shams, explaining that they met a man named Mr. Safra on November 26 after several weeks of discussions about potential funding.

We contacted Mr. Safra via email and video calls and he explained that he wanted to invest in some exciting Web3 ventures, Shams explained.

He explained that he had already been scammed by people in crypto so he collected our credentials for KYC, and stipulated as a requirement that we travel to Rome to meet him as it was important to meet IRL to get to know who we were each doing business with, he added.

full story https://t.co/vdkAHyBaG9

— 0xngmi (aggregation arc) (@0xngmi) February 6, 2023

Although initially skeptical, Shams agreed to meet Mr. Safra and his banker in person in a hotel lobby in Rome, where Shams was to show the projects proof of funding, which Mr. Safra claimed he had. need to start the paperwork.

Although we reluctantly accepted the Trust Wallet proof, we created a new Trust Wallet account at home using a device that we weren’t primarily using to interact with them. Our thought was that without our private keys or seed phrases, the funds would be safe anyway,” Shams said.

When we met, we sat across from these three men and transferred 4 million USDC into the Trust Wallet. Mr Safra asked to see the balances on the Trust Wallet app and pulled out his phone to take pictures.

Shams explained that he thought it was OK because no private key or seed phrase had been revealed to Mr. Safra.

But once Mr. Safra walked out of the meeting room to supposedly consult with fellow bankers, he never returned. Then Shams saw the funds embezzled.

We never saw him again. A few minutes later, the funds left the wallet.

Almost immediately after, Shams reported the theft to a local police station in Rome and filed an Internet Crime Complaint Form (IC3) with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation a few days later.

Shams said he still has no idea how Mr. Safra and his team of scammers pulled off the exploit:

The interim update of ongoing investigations indicates that we are still unable to confidently establish the attack vector. Investigators have reviewed the available evidence and engaged in lengthy interviews with those involved, but additional technical information is needed for them to reach conclusions with confidence.

Specifically, we need more information from Trust Wallet regarding the activity on the wallet that was emptied to reach a technical conclusion and we are actively pursuing them for their records. This will likely give us a better picture of how it happened, he added.

Cointelegraph contacted Trust Wallet CEO Eowyn Chen who said that after engaging with his investigation team, “we are confident that the theft case was not caused by Trust Wallet, but probably by organized crime.

Sad to hear about the Webaverse theft case. After consulting with investigation teams, we are confident that the theft case was NOT caused by the @TrustWallet app, but likely by organized crime. Unfortunately, there have been a few in-person OTC scams in Europe, particularly in Rome. https://t.co/KbIPjz01uB

— Eowync.eth (@EowynChen) February 6, 2023

Related: Just Stay Away From Phishing Scammers

The Webaverse co-founder believes the exploit was carried out similarly to an NFT scam story shared by NFT entrepreneur Jacob Riglin on July 21, 2021.

There, Riglin explained that he met potential business partners in Barcelona, ​​proved he had sufficient funds on his laptop, and then within 30-40 minutes the funds were exhausted.

Complete History of NFT Scam;

After replying to my previous tweets about the $90,000 scam I was involved in, I wanted to share more details about it to help warn others against falling victim to it.

I was contacted by a certain Philippe Maloof from Canbury Properties Limited. He said he had a

— Jacob (@jacobriglin) July 21, 2021

Shams has since shared the Ethereum-based transaction where his Trust Wallet was operated, noting that the funds were quickly split into six transactions and sent to six new addresses, none of which had previous activity.”

The $4 million worth of USDC was then almost entirely converted into Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and Tether (USDT) through the 1-inch exchange feature.

Shams admitted that the event haunts me to this day and that the $4 million feat is definitely a setback for Webaverse.

However, he stressed that the $4 million exploit and ongoing investigation will have no impact on the company’s short-term commitments and plans:

We have a sufficient 12-16 month track based on our current forecast and we are on track to deliver on our plans.

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