Scammer with a conscience?

[Aliciaworld]

A while back in 2024, someone lost $68 million worth of crypto after sending funds to a scammer using an address poisoning attack. The victim sent an onchain message asking for the money back, and the scammer replied:

"please leave your telegram, i will contact you."

the scammer eventually returned nearly all the stolen funds. The scammer only kept 15% of his funds as a bounty for the person being stupid.

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although 15% of $68 million is a lot but let's be real $10.2m isn't just a bounty, it's a life changing payday. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

[Faisal2202]

I could not believe what I was reading, so I had to confirm it, and found this:
https://amlcrypto.io/blog/the_hacker_returned_almost_all_the_funds_to_the_user

I am surprised that the hacker took 15% and returned the rest(edit: he did not took that 15%) because these hackers are not good people. They are not usually like this. Maybe this specific one is an honest hacker. Or when they exchanged messages on Telegram, the whale who lost funds might have threatened the hacker, or might have cried and begged him to return the money, saying, "Please have mercy and return my money."

It's seriously very satisfying. In an era of all these hacks, acts like this by hackers can win your heart, haha.

I can't say why the hacker sent the funds back, it was either fear, practicality, or conscience!

BTW, what if this is all plotted to evade taxation? Can they evade tax this way? I am not an expert, just a thought!

[alani123]

An agreement not to pursue legal action voluntarily can mean a lot.

The attackers funds after the return are able to be sold so they can getrid of them without having to worry about potential seizures or facing investigations.

Well, an investigation might still follow but after having gotten rid of the funds it's to no avail. Their legal recourse is also better after having made an agreement.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

You could say both but since he was able to scam someone and casually send the fund to the owner it means that he can actually stole completely all the funds but instead he chose to be decent. For the victim thats the best thing he could never forget the mistake his done in his entire life.

I dont know the details of the story but somehow I remember this and the probably the hacker is a white hacker who simply looking for a payday but hit a jackpot without having a sleepless night that the didnt do decent on his hacking career.

[logfiles]

If you encounter a killer but he then decided to just cut off your limbs regardless after you pleading with him, do you consider him to have some conscious? 

one of the two things I think.
1. The scammer did not expect to net that much. He was probably expecting a few hundreds of dollars not millions
2. The freaked out due to the increased scrutiny as the amount involve was so high.

https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/address-poisoning-scam/

[Perfectbaby]

A while back in 2024, someone lost $68 million worth of crypto after sending funds to a scammer using an address poisoning attack. The victim sent an onchain message asking for the money back, and the scammer replied:

"please leave your telegram, i will contact you."

the scammer eventually returned nearly all the stolen funds. The scammer only kept 15% of his funds as a bounty for the person being stupid.

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam although 15% of $68 million is a lot but let's be real $10.2m isn't just a bounty, it's a life changing payday. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

I do not think the scammer was scared but he has human sympathy knowing what it takes to make such amount of money.
Of course, we can say that the scammer could be a new person in the system and wouldn't want the user to lose everything completely, again if someone reserved around 15% and the owner has Around 85% we can consider that to be fee paid to back the owner for being careless sending back his money to the wrong address.
Those who are greedy would want to make sure they have everything 100% percent without knowing that some people have concerns and have human sympathy, know what it takes to lose such amount of money.

[Mrbluntzy]

A while back in 2024, someone lost $68 million worth of crypto after sending funds to a scammer using an address poisoning attack. The victim sent an onchain message asking for the money back, and the scammer replied:

"please leave your telegram, i will contact you."

the scammer eventually returned nearly all the stolen funds. The scammer only kept 15% of his funds as a bounty for the person being stupid.

Did you actually read the whole story about this incident, because you are giving a misleading information by saying that the scammer kept 15%. The on-chain report I see stated that the hacker returned 22,960 ETH and it was worth about $65.7m - $67.1m, which represents about 96% of the total money that was stolen. Based on what was even reported, the difference in the money the hacker returned was because he converted the WBTC that he stole to ETH and Ethereum price has already fallen relative to the value of the WBTC he stole.

The scammer didn't keep the 15% as a bounty payment, if you read the report on their negotiation, the victim even asked the scammer to keep 10% and return 90%.

Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

He has conscience and then he is stealing? People who have conscience doesn't steal other person's hard earned money. I don't think he was scared.

https://amlcrypto.io/blog/the_hacker_returned_almost_all_the_funds_to_the_user

I am surprised that the hacker took 15% and returned the rest,

The hacker never took any 15%, OP gave a misleading information about that. Did you not read it in the link your posted?  

The criminal, who defrauded the victim out of $68 million using an address poisoning scheme, expressed his willingness to negotiate by publishing two corresponding messages and gave the user 51 ETH (~$153,800) on the morning of May 9th. Then, within a few days, almost the entire amount was returned. This is evidenced by on-chain data on the Etherscan
platform.

[noorman0]

-snip-
Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

This scammer simply hadn't prepared for everything and didn't expect to end up with such a large haul. I suspect he's either just starting out or are merely a small-time crook, evidenced by his insistence on communicating via Telegram. Anyone with professional experience knows that Telegram is not quite secure against tracking.

This individual is thinking solely in terms of legal consequences; there is clearly no conscience at play here, given that he is still looking to negotiate.

[Aliciaworld]

Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

He has conscience and then he is stealing? People who have conscience doesn't steal other person's hard earned money. I don't think he was scared.
[/quote]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

[Queen uloma]

I don’t think it’s conscience that made the scammer to return the money. It maybe because his afraid of being traced or caught, Because anyone that can freely steal $68 million isn’t someone that has a conscience.
I feel he only decided to keep 15% to avoid more trouble. The victim is lucky because it’s not  everyone who was  scammed got their money back.

[Rruchi man]

Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

A reason could be that the scammer was experiencing a lot of success at that point; that is, like, he had successfully scammed a lot of money at that point that he could afford to let go of some. Scammers are humans, and some of them actually have a conscience; they are not all conscience dead—they can't all be.

There are scammers who recognize that what they are doing is bad and are not even justifying it. Perhaps the victim was lucky to be scammed by one such scammer who is not greedy and has some conscience left. We can't all be that lucky.

[FirmWars]

The owner got lucky (I would say) since he didn't lose everything to the scam. Do you think the scammer had a conscience or was he scared?

Yes, the victim was lucky and I guess the hacker was a whitehat who didn't have the intention to really take the money without returning it, maybe he just wanted to show to the victim that a blackhat can be able to steal his coins. Whitehats are not really bad people without conscience and like a said, I think this person is a whitehat and his real intention was not to collect the money but just to prove a point. There was another case I saw similar to this one, it's about HTX hacker returns funds, Justin Sun confirms 250 ETH 'whitehat bonus', the hacker took 5,000 ETH and later returned it but was rewarded 250 ETH.

[stompix]

I could not believe what I was reading, so I had to confirm it, and found this:
https://amlcrypto.io/blog/the_hacker_returned_almost_all_the_funds_to_the_user

How could I avoid taxes this year?
Oh, how about I make up a story about being hacked, I make a deal with myself that I get back 90% of the sum and then I claim all that as a loss, while the rest of the ETH will sit in an account there till I get old.

Yeah, right, cause the victim will no still be required by law to file a complain about this and police will not still need to investigate since a crime is still a crime even if forgiven. Yeah, he will be able to get away with 1000 ETH but not with 22000, what's the logic in this? Just as we will use those 1000 he kept he would have been able to use 1000 and keep the other 21 000.

[Faisal2202]

I am surprised that the hacker took 15% and returned the rest,

The hacker never took any 15%, OP gave a misleading information about that. Did you not read it in the link your posted?  
[/quote]
Thanks for correcting, I read it but I still missed this part well the old news did reported before the hacker could return it all, that he might take 10% to 15%. I read from other sources too so I might have missed but thanks for correcting. But still why haha. Why would he return anyway.

Yeah stompix that's what I thought but still said because I thought maybe there is a game haha that we can play haha.

[Jegileman]

If the owner was still able to contact the hacker and had him send some money back, then this looks more like a threaten to pursue legal action on the hacker. I am just thinking that maybe the owner got hold of something that could actually implicate this person, and based on the money in question, pursuing legal action will even be faster to mob the hacker.

This sounds really surprising but there is nothing not impossible today. We can’t be so sure what transpired between them more than the news we saw that he asked the owner to drop his telegram handle to be contacted. 15% is a lot of money of the amount back, even that amount kept is a big amount that could change his life.

[decodx]

Returning the stolen funds especially in the light you've shared shows conscience. Educated the victim, as well as raised awareness of such schemes. The height of it for me was returning the stolen funds. $68 million is a lot of money and returning it whether in part or in whole means a lot.

You quoted Mrbluntzy, so I assume you've read what he wrote. Yet, you still haven't corrected your original post, in which you provided inaccurate and misleading information about this case.

While you're at it, fix the broken quotes as well.

[BitMaxz]

The scammer didn't keep the 15% as a bounty payment, if you read the report on their negotiation, the victim even asked the scammer to keep 10% and return 90%.

10% is still a big amount from 67+ million; this is how lucky the victims are that the hacker decided to return 90% of his funds.

What I think here the hackers just return that hacked amount because he already satisfied with the 10% promise by the sender; at least it's a protection that the real owner won't bother anymore to find who is behind the hack so that the hacker can freely use the amount as a reward, not totally stolen but a reward.

[terrific]

I am surprised that the hacker took 15% and returned the rest(edit: he did not took that 15%) because these hackers are not good people.

There are good and bad hackers, and there's this engaged in both legal and illegal hacking.
I guess this one is a gray hat hacker.

BTW, what if this is all plotted to evade taxation? Can they evade tax this way? I am not an expert, just a thought!

This is also possible.
There's some other means of it like paying more transaction fee than the actual transfer.
I remember that incident in the past where the transaction has paid a lot in gas fee and then the transfer was around a thousand or two.
A costly mistake or the same thing as money laundering.

[Agbamoni]

I don’t think it’s conscience that made the scammer to return the money. It maybe because his afraid of being traced or caught, Because anyone that can freely steal $68 million isn’t someone that has a conscience.
I feel he only decided to keep 15% to avoid more trouble. The victim is lucky because it’s not  everyone who was  scammed got their money back.

He can still be traced or caught after returning the money. Obviously, that is not the reason unless there was an agreement between the victim and the scammer. If there was a verbal agreement, absolutely, the case won't hold anything in court if he was caught. The scammer obviously wants to enjoy the money he benefited from the hack without any legal consequences; that's why he returned most of the money. If he had stolen the money without a trace, he wouldn't have returned any money.

[mirakal]

Scammers do not have conscience because if they do, they could have stopped scamming innocent people long ago.

However, what I see here is mostly fear, maybe the scammer is not that trained well and is still new to this. But a crime remains a crime no matter how small it is. Its up to the victim if he will continue to hunt the scammer, or just leave him behind, after all nearly all his stolen cryptos are now back.

But if the victim won't see this thing as serious, I guess its like tolerating the scammer. He will scammed more people for sure.