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Scammers Collected Over $155,877 in BTC Using Fake Elon Musk YouTube Stream

Mon, 06/08/2020 - 13:41
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Yuri Molchan
Scammers have been setting up fake YouTube streams that 'feature' Elon Musk and other big-names. One of them brought in over 16 BTC
Scammers Collected Over $155,877 in BTC Using Fake Elon Musk YouTube Stream
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Ivan Tikhonov, the founder of Russia-based Bits.media, has warned his Facebook followers against sending Bitcoin during YouTube streams conducted by scammers impersonating Elon Musk, Bill Gates and other accounts with a large number of subs. 

Scammers have been setting up fake giveaways in order to steal BTC from users.

Scam 1
Image via Facebook

Tikhonov stated that during one of those fake streams, imitating SpaceX, in which Elon Musk made an appearance, scammers managed to get more than 16 BTC.

Scammers hijack celebrities’ YouTube channels 

In a recent Facebook post, Ivan Tikhonov wrote about recent cases of hackers hijacking popular channels on YouTube in order to con their subscribers into sending them cryptocurrencies.

The Bits.media founder stated that the con artists access those channels via emails filled with a Trojan-infected attachment, which the unaware potential victims open.

The scammers work ‘personally’ with each YouTuber and steal their account. The topic of the channel does not matter, Tikhonov says. It’s the large number of subs that’s important.

According to Tikhonov, the bad players change the channel’s name, delete the published videos and launch fake live streams, announcing crypto giveaways.

They ask the audience to send them from 0.1 to 20 BTC to the contributions wallet. In return, the scammers promise to send back double the amount of BTC.

Related
Elon Musk Discloses How Much Bitcoin (BTC) He Owns

The massive scale of the scam

Numerous of those accounts have been hijacked, the Russian entrepreneur says, posting a screenshot from one of the fake streams – the one of SpaceX launching Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon.

scammers 2
Image via Facebook

The fraudsters managed to earn more than 16 BTC from this stream alone (that’s $155,877).

The address they used for raising the money is 1Musk1ooxNZY3hene1rjqkT3UV1KQXYC49.

BTC wallet
Image via blockchain.com
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About the author

Yuri is a crypto journalist interested in technology and technical innovations. He has been in crypto since 2017. Believes that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a potential to transform the world in the future in many of its aspects. ‘Hodls’ major cryptocurrencies and has written for multiple crypto media outlets. 

His articles have been quoted by such crypto influencers as Tyler Winklevoss, John McAfee, CZ Binance, Max Keiser, etc.

Currently Yuri is a news writer at U.Today and can be contacted at yuri.molchan@u.today.