Social Engineering Scam Hack

On January 10, 2026, a victim lost over $282 million worth of Bitcoin and Litecoin (1,459 BTC and 2.05M LTC) through a hardware wallet social engineering scam, with the attacker immediately bridging 928.7 BTC (~$71M) via THORChain to Ethereum (19,631.1 ETH), Ripple (3.15M XRP), and Litecoin (77.2K LTC), then laundering portions through Tornado Cash and multiple centralized exchanges.

ZachXBT reported this massive theft occurring around 11 PM UTC on January 10, 2026, where social engineering tactics were used to compromise the victim's hardware wallet containing substantial Bitcoin and Litecoin holdings. The attacker immediately began converting the stolen assets through multiple channels to obscure the trail. A significant portion (928.7 BTC worth approximately $71M) was bridged through THORChain's cross-chain swap protocol, converting to 19,631.1 ETH on Ethereum, 3.15M XRP on Ripple, and 77.2K LTC.

The attacker also converted substantial amounts of the stolen LTC and BTC directly to Monero via multiple instant exchanges, causing the XMR price to sharply increase due to the volume. From the Ethereum-bridged funds, the attacker dispersed assets to various destinations including 1,468.66 ETH ($4.9M) laundered through Tornado Cash, 735 ETH ($2.4M) to WhiteBit, 100 ETH to ChangeNOW, 2,402 ETH ($8M) to KuCoin, and 143 ETH ($477K) to Huobi, employing a multi-layered laundering strategy combining privacy protocols, instant exchanges, and centralized platforms.

Theft Addresses:

bc1qluxw46r55wf3dnk9c652vrt4duadm3hpuktf86 (BTC)

bc1qpsmh26ja0fzzf286zulmt9eywujc2pggj40wzm (BTC)

ltc1qly43c2prj4c2e85dcspzpjd36jnapnenldnr70 (LTC)