In a striking turn of events that some may deem poetic justice, a significant victim of the recent Ledger theft has been identified as an individual engaged in deceptive practices, as revealed by blockchain analysts. This individual reportedly incurred a loss of nearly $5 million in Bitcoin.

In a statement published on Thursday, Chainalysis disclosed that the perpetrator lost 60 bitcoins, equivalent to approximately $4.8 million, which had been acquired through a fraudulent “task scam.”

Chainalysis detailed that the wallet address involved was associated with a scheme wherein individuals were compensated for fabricating sales and reviews of legitimate products. Participants were instructed to invest their own funds to receive payment, only to be subsequently defrauded.

Notably, the individual behind the task scam subsequently transferred the ill-gotten gains to Ledger addresses, which were later targeted during the theft incident last week.

According to Chainalysis, “On September 22, the individual responsible for the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses. On October 9, these addresses were entirely compromised, with one transfer made to a single wallet reported as containing stolen funds.”

Ledger, headquartered in Paris, announced last week that an investigation has been initiated following reports from customers in Southeast Asia regarding losses incurred after purchasing from the Malaysia-based reseller, CryptoBilis.

The company further indicated that this scam represented a large-scale organized crime operation, involving a group that implanted malicious devices, repackaged them, and subsequently reintroduced them to the market. These implants were capable of capturing users’ seed phrases, thereby permitting criminals to deplete their cryptocurrency wallets.

Describing the incident as one of the most “sophisticated attacks” that the digital asset industry has encountered, Ledger has yet to disclose the total amount lost. However, blockchain investigator Specter estimates that $86 million has been siphoned off.

Interestingly, Chainalysis identified the task scam operator as one of the casualties in this event.

In response to these developments, Ledger has committed to collaborating with law enforcement agencies to trace the stolen funds and dismantle the infrastructure of the attackers. The company has also taken measures to ensure that other vendors have not fallen prey to these scams.

In light of these events, CryptoBilis has ceased the sale of Ledger products, according to an official statement from the company.

This year has witnessed a series of targeted attacks on Bitcoin hardware vendors, one of the most notable being the large-scale breach of the widely used Coldcard products in July.

During this incident, criminals successfully made off with nearly $120 million in Bitcoin from Coldcard users due to a firmware bug that resulted in faulty seed phrase generation, which enabled hackers to guess the investors’ seed phrases.

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