Drivers pretending to be Uber, drunk passengers become prime targets
The police in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA this week announced the arrest of a fake Uber driver. The suspect allegedly used his disguised identity to lure drunk or distracted passengers into the car, and then obtained the passengers' mobile phones to steal them. Cryptocurrency, a total of approximately US$300,000 worth of crypto assets (approximately NT$9.74 million) was defrauded. The suspect, named Nuruhussein Hussein, has been charged with multiple crimes, including theft, fraud and money laundering, and was sent to the Maricopa County Jail.
According to foreign media reports (Fox10Phoenix), most of the incidents occurred outside the W Hotel in Scottsdale. The suspects have been targeting drunk or unsuspecting passengers waiting for Uber on the roadside since March this year. He first used the victim's name to pretend he was the driver they had booked to gain trust. After getting on the bus, the suspect will ask to borrow the passenger's mobile phone on the grounds of "mobile phone malfunction", or claim to check for problems with the Uber App, taking the opportunity to gain account access to the victim's mobile phone.
Transfer funds from exchanges and coerce victims into handing over private keys
Police said the suspect used the cryptocurrency app on the victim's phone to quickly transfer passengers' Bitcoin or other digital assets to his own wallet. In addition, by mastering the private keys and passwords, he moved the victims' assets on encryption platforms such as Coinbase to offline wallets. After a successful attack, the suspect even took away the victim's car keys, broke into his house and searched for designer clothes, PS5 game consoles and multiple iPhones. After the victim came to his senses, he was shocked to realize that his assets and belongings had been stolen.
What is outrageous is that when a passenger became suspicious and asked to get his phone back, the suspect even threatened him, threatening that he would engage in dangerous behavior if he did not cooperate. After the victim escaped, he immediately called police and went to the hospital for treatment of bruises on his head and wrists.
U.S. and international cybercrime draws renewed attention as authorities intervene
With the support of the US Secret Service, Scottsdale police arrested the suspect on December 11. During the trial, the judge determined that the case was serious and that the suspect was at risk of fleeing overseas, so he set a cash bail of US$200,000, and even if he was released on bail, he must wear an electronic monitoring device. At the same time, the suspect is prohibited from using the Internet and leaving the country to avoid destroying evidence or absconding to Ethiopia, where he often travels back and forth.
As physical cryptocurrency thefts have occurred one after another in many countries in recent years, this case has attracted market attention on network security and user education. According to data records on GitHub, at least dozens of offline encryption robberies have occurred around the world since 2014, including an incident in Melbourne, Australia, in early December when a thief drove into a shopping mall and robbed a Bitcoin ATM. This shows that such entities kidnap, Cases of theft or intimidation of crypto assets are not isolated.
Encryption protection upgrades, investors need to be more vigilant
The case once again highlights security vulnerabilities and insufficient user education in the encryption market. Experts recommend that crypto investors must increase their security awareness: avoid handing over mobile phones at will, be careful of suspicious people in public places, and try to use two-factor authentication and cold wallets to store large assets. Crypto exchanges and service providers also call on users to set up complex passwords for their accounts and establish warning mechanisms to freeze assets promptly when abnormal transactions are discovered.
Overall, this case highlights that even in a decentralized and online world, strict physical security measures and user vigilance are still needed to prevent similar incidents from happening again. Through the active intervention of law enforcement agencies and the improvement of users' risk awareness, the future of the encryption industry can be moved in a safer and more sound direction.
"Beware of fake Uber drivers!" He tricked a drunk passenger into "stealing the private key of his wallet" and made a profit of 300,000 mg." This article was first published on "Crypto City"