$20M bridge ETH returned to ZKasino multisig which opened the hope of refund
More than $20 million worth of Ether (ETH) has been secretly returned to the wallet of blockchain-based gambling project ZKasino – three weeks after users accused the platform's founders of withdrawal scams.
On May 9, X Feed, a fund set up to fund ZKasino's exit scam, reported that nearly $21 million worth of bottled Lido staking ETH (wstETH) was returned to the project's multi-signature wallet – leading some to believe investors may soon get their money back. As he enters the first word.
“One of the three fraudsters sent the money to the first multi-sig wallet address,” the $JAIL feed confirmed with Etherscan.
6,021 wstETH was moved, equal to two-thirds of the amount lost in the heist, which means “could they be preparing to return the victims' funds?” It raised a question.
ZKasino launched on April 20th, promising to return ETH to ZKAS who have transferred ETH to the platform by giving them an airdrop on the platform.
However, instead of returning the funds to users as originally promised, the gambling project has moved an estimated $33 million worth of users' Ethereum to staking protocol Lido Finance.
This has led to more than 10,000 people being charged with exit scams or carpet-pulling after their promises to the protocol were later broken.
On April 29, Dutch authorities arrested a 26-year-old man on suspicion of casino fraud.
Authorities seized $12.2 million worth of cryptocurrencies, real estate and luxury cars from the suspect.
Some in the crypto community speculate that the arrested suspect may be the project's founder.
On May 8, Cointelegraph reported that Binance on-chain investigations team played a key role in the arrest of the suspect by law enforcement.
Binance also helped impound millions of dollars worth of stolen crypto after receiving a warrant from authorities on the attacker's account.
Despite the arrests, the illicit funds continue to travel through the chain, suggesting that other attackers may be caught. However, the recent influx of funds back into Project Multisig has renewed hope for victims.
Related: Trader loses $68 million in address poisoning scam
Not including the ZKasino incident, an estimated $25.7 million worth of cryptocurrency was lost through fraud and hacking, according to data from the chain's intelligence agency Certike.
This is the lowest figure since 2021, according to the organization that began tracking the data.
Related: Lazarus Group Raises Over $200M in Hacked Crypto Since 2020
