Monkey Drainer-linked scammers possibly exposed after an on-chain quarrel

January 30, 2023 Alex Rustok

Blockchain security firm CertiK believes to have found the real identity of at least one scammer allegedly linked tothe “Monkey Drainer” phishing scam.

Monkey Drainer is the pseudonym for a phishing scammer(s) that uses smart contracts to steal NFTs through a process known as “ice phishing.” 

The individual or persons behind the phishing scam have stolen millions worth of Ether (ETH) via malicious copycat nonfungible token (NFT) minting websites to date. 

In a Jan. 27 blog, CertiK said it found on-chain messages between two scammers involved in a recent $4.3 million Porsche NFT phishing scam and was able to link one of them to a Telegram account involved in selling the Monkey Drainer-style phishing kit. 

One message revealed a person referring to themself as “Zentoh” and referred to the person who stole the funds as “Kai.”

Zentoh was seemingly upset at Kai for not sending over a slice of the stolen funds. The message from Zentoh directs Kai to deposit the ill-gotten gains “at our address.”

An on-chain message from a person referring to themselves as “Zentoh,” upset they didn’t receive a portion of phished funds from a person they address as “Kai.” Image: CertiK

CertiK deduced the joint wallet was the address that received the $4.3 million in stolen crypto. The firm added there is a “direct link” between the joint wallet and “some of the most prominent Monkey Drainer scammer wallets.”

The wallet address tied to Zentoh is in turn tied to numerous addresses linked to the Monkey Drainer scam. Image: CertiK

Zentoh revealed in another message the pair used Telegram to communicate. CertiK found an exact match for the pseudonym on the messaging app and identified it “to be running a Telegram group that sells phishing kits to scammers.”

The company found numerous other online accounts possibly linked to Zentoh, including one on GitHub that posted repositories for crypto drainer tools.

If the links between the accounts are legitimate, it reveals the identity of a French national living in Russia.

Cointelegraph reviewed accounts potentially related to the person and found public accounts that seemed to be interested in cryptocurrencies. Cointelegraph contacted the person but did not immediately receive a response.

Cointelegraph will not publish the name of the person due to privacy concerns.

Related: Hackers take over Azuki’s Twitter account, steal over $750K in less than 30 minutes

Crypto wallet-draining phishing scams have unfortunately been used to great effect recently.

The co-founder of the Moonbirds NFT collection, Kevin Rose, fell victim to such a scam that lead to over $1.1 million worth of his personal NFTs being stolen.

The crypto wallet of the influencer known on Twitter as “NFT God” suffered a similar fate after they downloaded malicious software from a Google Ad search result, with ETH and high-priced NFTs pilfered from the wallet.