Release the hounds : 45.8 BTC stolen - electrum-wallet.com CRIMINAL sticky pls

[Noore Najjar]

damn man , thats a fuckton of a money , feels bad for you , ive had problem like this once but on liqui and not much ..they keep their mouth shut then i decide to spam their telegram and boom i got my money , ive never trust any exchanger except polo and bittrex even most of them are risky there no other choices

[1714979239]

1714979239

[CheapYoutubeHits]

Fake website : electrum-wallet.com  (Doesn't even use HTTPS)

Real website : electrum.org



How did you find the electrum-wallet.com URL? Did you use google?

[jubalix]

would it have helped if you used an air gaped computer?

[kokojie]

If you can, please make this a sticky , people NEED to be warned and i need to find someone to recover 150kusd and get 75kusd for it (Relative to current BTC + BCH prices )

I got robbed of 45.8 BTC (and BCH so total = 150000$) after installing the executable from electrum-wallet.com.

I was running multisig but both on the same PC. First i ran the portable electrum.exe from  electrum-wallet.com but when it did not load my wallets *NOTE : the ones that had BTC in them ,it loaded just fine any other wallet ) - I don't want to hear opinions on my stupidity

After it didn't work i downloaded last version of electrum from electrum.org

I'm wondering how the F is it possible that after 2 years of this thread no one has taken down and/or announced the US. authorities fbi etc about it.

I'm in Romania and have no wish to deal with this legally, which will probably get me nowhere.



I  am willing to split the rights on the BTC with whoever is capable of recovering them via detective+legal means.

This is the transaction : https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/78d44db46445d3097996fc644c1221eeead31added5c35cf1b7938737e3b49db


As i said , I don't want to hear opinions on my stupidity, this is mostly a warning and hopefully a way for someone to make a healthy 75000$.

Why do you think it's based in the US? it's probably not, the owner of the site might be closer to you eg. eastern europe/Russia.

[gishab56]

electrum-wallet.com is scam. download wallet from electrum.org

[escrow.ms]

I'm sorry for your loss but thanks for reporting for other's safety. I have mailed namecheap to suspend domain and asked them to provide  real registration data. I will see if I can do some help.

[Ayers]

electrum-wallet.com is clearly not the right side, just see the chrome identity it tell to em that is not secure, electrum.org is the correct one, you should avoid not secure website, and run them only on a virtual machine first

[Qartersa]

You lost your bitcoins due to carelessness! You should have secured and research very well what was the real electrum wallet. Their website is clearly electrum.org and you did not even bother check if this was the legit site. Damn, so much money lost just like that. No chance you can retrieve it, to be honest. It would take so much time and effort to follow the transactions.

[Kprawn]

I hope other people will learn from your mistake. Thank you for posting this, but unfortunately those BTC will not be recovered

soon. People hosting these scams, move quickly when they hit a jackpot like this. I would suggest that people do a test tx

first, before they move their coins. This will prevent situations like this in the future. You will only lose the test run coins and

not your whole hoard.  

[BlackPanda]

electrum-wallet.com is clearly not the right side, just see the chrome identity it tell to em that is not secure, electrum.org is the correct one, you should avoid not secure website, and run them only on a virtual machine first

Everyone should already know that official wallet is only available in electrum dot org. It is unfortunate that this is a frivolous act, with a very large nominal should he be able to feel the benefits at this time. I am very concerned that there are still people who believe using unofficial wallets. I'm sorry and hopefully no one's going through this again. This is the cause that security is a very important part in the digital era and online transactions like today.

[ViceOfBTC21]

You could mitigate that by using paper wallets for cold storage for bitcoins. And storing only $1000 on Electrum. So scammer would steal only that $1000. And remember the ONLY official address of Electrum: electrum.ORG. Use Electrum only from this link. You will still have access to bitcoins when software is abandoned.

[CryptoBoomers]

Horrible, you seem to be taking it like a champ too but damn, that's just straight horrible.

Someone really should do a screen cap of a step by step for youtube. I have a core wallet and am still scared to touch it re getting my bcc until I see someone do this (and they'll probably get great views/ad money - hint - you youtube guys that have successfully done the conversion should jump on this the search result traffic alone would do you well).

[xdev]

While tracing the transaction and getting to the bottom of this will be indeed a very hard feat I can still see some light in this matter but getting all of the money back will not happen easily. I suspect this will boil down to major pressure from a legal advisor who goes very hard in on the hosting company and pressure them. Either through legal means or negative press.

By saying theres noway for OP to get his money back you are simply saying that the hosting company "Namecheap.com" is doing the right by hiding the registration information of criminals and also hosting and supporting criminal activities? I read at Namecheap.com that they are a "an accredited ICANN registrar". Well guys, an "accredited ICANN registrar" don't simply break ICANN rules by hiding registration information of criminals.

Report this hosting company to ICANN and threaten with legal action if nothing happens. With the right searchwords the site electrum-wallet.com (which is also a cheap copy of the correct electrum.org website) is at the top of Google search. The site is hosted by namecheap.com and the registration information of the owner which should be public information is hidden with a tool of theirs, which btw, is breaking the terms and conditions of ICANN policy.

You definitely need legal help to resolve this, and there is no certainty if namecheap.com even hold any valid registration information on the owner of the website why I think you should pressure the hosting company hard on this.

[CryptoBoomers]

^ Chances are if the ppl behind this are smart enough to create a wallet that can wipe out your machines wallets, they've thought well past domain/hosting/ID's/IP's/legal/whatifs/unforeseens/etc. Best case scenario namecheap and the host give up intel that's probably daisy chained to dead ends imo. I'm sure they won't be around long but all it takes is a new domain.whatever and another indi/loose/foreign hosting and they're up again.

** I hate scammers as much as anyone else, however, like anyone else, I'm fascinated by the schemes they execute and must admit this shit was clever, timed, and paid the fawk off for these guys. What a beautiful and cruel world.

[xdev]

You dont know if the website is hosted by namescheap, the domain is registered with namecheap,

The owner of electrum-wallet.com is using whois gaurd to protect his personal information,

Wow, thanks for stating the obvious. Actually, namecheap.com offers a free WhoisGuard subscription for domain registrations.

The actual service WhoisGuard has a "zero tolerance for scammers" Well, I don't know about that. Most likely they would'nt offer such a service to begin with.

Also, namecheap.com has been sued before regarding issues with WhoisGuard, read here: http://domainnamewire.com/2011/05/09/namecheap-sued-over-whoisguard/

You should definitely threaten with legal action as this isn't the first time namecheap.com is involved in things like this.

[BartS]

I hope other people will learn from your mistake. Thank you for posting this, but unfortunately those BTC will not be recovered

soon. People hosting these scams, move quickly when they hit a jackpot like this. I would suggest that people do a test tx

first, before they move their coins. This will prevent situations like this in the future. You will only lose the test run coins and

not your whole hoard.  

This, I hope you get your coins back OP but the truth of the matter is that is going to be almost impossible to do so, even if the criminal is arrested I doubt very much that he would like to give the money back since in a decade or two those coins could be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions.

[TheFriends]

I was running multisig but both on the same PC. First i ran the portable electrum.exe from  electrum-wallet.com but when it did not load my wallets *NOTE : the ones that had BTC in them ,it loaded just fine any other wallet ) - I don't want to hear opinions on my stupidity

who told you that "electrum-wallet.com" is the real website to download a bitcoin wallet from?
i am sorry for your loss but you should have double checked where you are downloading your wallet. this is not even the first scam attempt and there have been a couple of more of these sites like this.

the official electrum wallet website is electrum.org and there is no alternative to that. any other website is a scam.

These scam websites are paying to advertise their websites in Google and steal this way the data from people who do the research of wallets on Google.

This also happen with the Ethereum wallets.

[CryptoBoomers]

^ Google does semi-manual to manual reviews however A LOT goes under the radar. The website looks legit, they don't understand crypto/they are not going to download wallets and inspect software - they want your money to advertise until enough ppl complain (not that it makes it right, but it doesn't mean they are/were compliant with the scam from the jump. Google employees and review teams are often not that hard to fool or bait/switch once ads are running).

[Kaller]

I was running multisig but both on the same PC. First i ran the portable electrum.exe from  electrum-wallet.com but when it did not load my wallets *NOTE : the ones that had BTC in them ,it loaded just fine any other wallet ) - I don't want to hear opinions on my stupidity

who told you that "electrum-wallet.com" is the real website to download a bitcoin wallet from?
i am sorry for your loss but you should have double checked where you are downloading your wallet. this is not even the first scam attempt and there have been a couple of more of these sites like this.

the official electrum wallet website is electrum.org and there is no alternative to that. any other website is a scam.

OP doesn't want to be called out for "stupidity" or whatever. I am not saying you are doing so, but let's be respectful.

With that said, you are right. If I was moving around 45.8 Bitcoins, you best believe it would be with the utmost precaution. I have lost my fair share of Bitcoin to scams and not prepared to lose more. I feel bad for OP though... the current state of Bitcoin is terrible and I think it will only stay the same, or get worse. Imagine what will happen when Bitcoin becomes mainstream. Everyone and their mother will have Bitcoin on public exchanges and scamming will become normal. It is sad.

[Beerwizzard]

Damn, i feeel that pain but still can't understand why people are so careless while operating such huge amounts of BTC. You could try to send your bitcoins to another waller without downloading anything (even  before download smth just check the website a billion times) and then claim your BCC. Don't think that you will get it back but that will be a lesson for everyone else.