By Solomon Odunayo
As a report has it, the group that perpetrated one of the most notorious scams in the history of cryptocurrency is taking vital steps to cover a huge stash of stolen Ethereum (ETH) worth $119,000,000.
This was shared by a researcher identified on Twitter as Frank on 25th June 2020. According to the report, the operators of the PlusToken Ponzi scheme that accrued approximately $2.9 billion in various cryptocurrencies back in 2019, are back in operation and are cycling their ETH stash via mixers.
Frank tweeted, “ATM, PlusToken mixer has made 5 hops and used 4967 addresses for this. 3813 of them now have a non-zero balance from 2 to 998 ETH. On average, there are 140 ETH on these addresses right now. This is a pretty big sums, so we can expect mixing continuation.”
ATM, PlusToken mixer has made 5 hops and used 4967 addresses for this. 3813 of them now have a non-zero balance from 2 to 998 ETH. On average, there are 140 ETH on these addresses right now. This is a pretty big sums, so we can expect mixing continuation. pic.twitter.com/6USzKIUW41
— Igor Igamberdiev (@FrankResearcher) June 25, 2020
What Is Mixing and How Are the PlusToken Ponzi Scheme Operators Leverage It?
Mixing is a means to obscure transactions by shuffling the crypto assets of a user with lots of other digital tokens and then sending smaller units to different wallets.
This process was created to enhance the privacy of legitimate cryptocurrency holders. However, the bad actors in the crypto community also leverage the means to cover their criminal activity.
Going by Frank’s account, the whopping sum of Ethereum (ETH) associated with the PlusToken Ponzi scheme has gone through a mixer 5 times, while smaller units of digital tokens were sent through 4967 addresses.
He pointed out that 3,813 addresses currently hold an average of 140 ETH, indicating that the thieves are attempting to move approximately $119 million worth of 533,820 ETH at the time of writing.
Additionally, the researcher expects the continuation of the mixing. He believes that the crypto scammers probably have a ground plan to use wallets that contain small units of ETH to liquidate the secretly kept digital tokens via exchanges with absolute privacy.