Chinese police report StarkNet airdrop identity fraud
Chinese authorities have arrested an identity fraud suspect linked to a Starknet (STRK) airdrop.
The suspect assumed the identities of other people and submitted more than 40 false Early Community Member Program (ECMP) waiver forms.
Following the airdrop, the suspect transferred more than 40,000 STRK tokens to the OKX Wallet, which were converted into more than $91,000 worth of Tether (USDT), according to local media reports on April 30.
The suspect, identified as Lan Mu, was arrested by police in Guangdong Province on April 25 along with a computer and two mobile phones.
As scams and phishing attacks become more prevalent in the cryptocurrency space, identity theft appears to be the first to claim other users' airdrops on such a large scale.
A crypto airdrop is a way of distributing a new currency, generally to early adopters who have interacted with a specific protocol.
The Starknet Foundation – the organization that supports Ethereum's Layer-2 Starknet network – launched a 700 million STRK token airdrop on February 20th, aiming to reward Ethereum sole and liquid shares, Starknet developers and users, as well as external projects and developers. The Web3 ecosystem.
The airdrop was met with high demand as the first 45 million STRK tokens were claimed in less than 90 minutes.
Related: Lazarus Group Raises Over $200M in Hacked Crypto Since 2020
The STRK airdrop is filled with airdrops.
In the year On February 20, Banteg, the pseudonymous developer of Yearn.finance, warned that Starknet's eligibility list consists mainly of airdrop scooters or professional airdrop hunters who land only with revenue airdrops in pursuit of financial benefits.
According to the developer, 701,544 of the 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses are suspected of duplicating or renaming GitHub accounts controlled by airdrop squatters — who often land the same airdrop to increase their rewards.
Last March, it was revealed that airdrop hunters had merged $3.3 million worth of tokens downloaded from 1,496 wallets at the time Arbitrum (ARB) into two wallets they controlled.
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