About 10 BTC, a small chunk of the total funds that were stolen, ended up in a Huobi Global account — and a judge has ordered for it to be frozen.
It’s an all-too-familiar story.
Back in April, a crypto investor bought 200 Bitcoin on Coinbase — but ended up losing all these funds in the space of 10 minutes.
The funds were worth $11.6 million at the time.
It all began when the victim received a notification telling them that their account was locked — and although the alert appeared genuine, it hadn’t been sent by Coinbase.
To make matters worse, a phone number had been included in this message. When the victim rang, a person pretending to be a Coinbase customer service representative increased the account’s daily transaction limit — and then tried to deactivate settings that would have told the user that funds were being drained from their accounts.
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A Twist in the Tale
Legal proceedings are continuing as the victim attempts to claw back their lost funds.
About 10 BTC, a small chunk of the total funds that were stolen, ended up in a Huobi Global account.
Now, a federal judge has approved a warrant that will enable this stash to be frozen so it can be reclaimed by its rightful owner.
The US Attorneys Office in Los Angeles says its investigation is ongoing, and told Business Insider that no arrests have been made so far.
Last month, we reported on a couple who looked on helplessly as Bitcoin worth $700,000 was drained from their account. Similarly, they had clicked on a text that had purported to be from Coinbase.
Erick and Molly Richardson told CNBC at the time that they were exasperated by the lack of support from the exchange’s customer service team, saying:
“It was a joke; it just makes me a little more angry. And there’s nobody who has any decision-making power at customer service. They just can't help out a lot. You know what Coinbase did two days after I got hacked? They sent me a customer survey and they asked me to rate their service.”
