The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized two non-fungible tokens (NFTs) worth more than $100,000 and 86.5 Ether (ETH) from a reported phishing scammer.
The alleged scammer in question, Chase Senecal, known as Horror (HZ) online, was initially exposed through a lengthy investigation by independent blockchain detective ZachXBT aware back in september.
In the official FBI notification aware on February 3, described the Seneca property, which also included an Audemars Piguet (AP) Royal Oak watch worth $41,000, as "seized for federal forfeiture for violation of federal law."
The FBI notice didn't go into much more detail about the ordeal, other than noting that all of the property was seized on October 24. the time of seizure.
The 86.5 ETH was valued at $116,433 at the time of the seizure, but is now to worth $144,000 at the time of writing.
It is unclear what is the full scope of the legal proceedings that have been brought against Senecal at this stage. However, according to the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Federal Forfeiture is a law enforcement tool that It allows to the government to โremove, without compensation to the individual, ownership of property involved in a crime.โ
"It can occur in a civil proceeding, such as a lawsuit against the article, or after a person's conviction in a criminal trial," the FBI states.
While the FBI has not officially released ZachXBT, the on-chain detective noted via Twitter on Feb. 3 that the property seizure "came as a result" of his investigation.
2/ HZ was responsible for using a Twitter panel to take over accounts like @Zeneca @sustantivodao @ezu_xyz @deekaymotion @JRNYclub as well as attacks on the Discord server @AnataNFT @Lacoste
The thread that started it all I have attached below. https://t.co/6dsfZ5jnGl pic.twitter.com/8EYl1yuIik
โ ZachXBT (@zachxbt) February 3, 2023
โI hope to see more phishing scammers suffer a similar fate in the future for harming so many people in this space,โ ZachXBT wrote.
With the seizure of a Bored Ape NFT, people in the community joked that the FBI will change his profile picture to Ape #9658.
In particular, the conspicuous AP watch was one of the key identifiers that helped ZachXBT unmask Senecal's identity and on-chain activity during the investigation.
In a medium post on September 2, ZachXBT explained that after seeing Horroz (HZ) bragging about the new watch on social media, he asked "some mutual friends who sell watches" and eventually managed to get in touch with the person who sold that specific AP watch to Senecal.
Unfortunately for Senecal, the payment was said to have been made on the blockchain through the use of USD Coin (USDC).
โThe address HZ used to pay the watch seller $47.5k was DIRECTLY funded by multiple addresses used to scam people with hacked Twitter accounts like @deekaymotion, @Zeneca_33, @ezu_xyz, [and] @JRNYclub,โ ZachXBT wrote.
This is not the first time that ZachXBT's research has played a key role in helping government authorities. In October, French National Cyber โโUnit He cited ZachXBT's work in helping him catch and charge a group of suspected scammers on suspicion of stealing $2.5 million worth of NFTs through phishing scams.
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