Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, a digital artist and popular nonfungible token (NFT) developer, had his Twitter account stolen on Sunday as part of a phishing attempt.
Users were warned by MetaMask security analyst Harry Denley that Beeple’s tweets at the time, which contained a link to a raffle of a Louis Vuitton NFT collaboration, were a phishing scheme that would drain crypto from users’ wallets if clicked.
The fraud artists were most likely hoping to profit from a legitimate recent Beeple-Louis Vuitton partnership. Beeple created 30 NFTs for the premium fashion brand’s Louis The Game smartphone game, which was used as player incentives earlier this month.
Beeple’s phishing scam cost users over $438k
The fraudster proceeded to tweet phishing links from his Twitter account, directing readers to fake Beeple collections with the promise of a free mint for unique NFTs.
The phishing links were up for nearly five hours on his Twitter, and an on-chain check of one of the scammers’ wallets revealed that the first phishing link got them 36 Ether (ETH), which was worth around $73,000 at the time.
The scammers received over $365,000 in ETH and multiple NFTs from high-value collections, like the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, VeeFriends, and Otherdeeds, among others, bringing the total worth of the scam to nearly $438,000.
According to on-chain data, the fraudster sold the NFTs on OpenSea before transferring their stolen ETH to a crypto mixer to conceal their gains.
He later claimed possession of his account, adding that “anything too good to be true IS A F*CKING SCAM.”
Three of the top ten most valuable NFTs ever sold were sold by Beeple, including one that sold for $69.3 million, the highest amount ever paid by a single owner. Hackers have targeted him because of his celebrity.
Customers lost roughly 38 ETH after a Beeple Discord moderator account was hijacked in November 2021, with hackers pushing a similar false NFT drop.
