The scammer got scammed: a fake-jobs fraudster lost 60 bitcoin, nearly $5 million, to the Ledger spy-chip thieves

One of the biggest victims of the Ledger hardware-wallet thefts turns out to be a fraudster. Chainalysis said on X on Thursday that a scammer who ran fake online job offers lost more than 60 bitcoin after keeping the proceeds on compromised Ledger devices, CoinDesk reported.

The scheme behind the money is a familiar one. In a task scam, victims are first paid small sums to post fake reviews or boost sales, then told their account has a negative balance and must be topped up before they can withdraw their earnings. Chainalysis traced the operator's bitcoin into three Ledger addresses on September 22. On October 9, each address was emptied and the coins were consolidated in one wallet already associated with stolen crypto, FinanceFeeds and Cryptopolitan reported.

The devices are part of the CryptoBilis case, in which Ledger units sold through a Southeast Asian reseller were found to carry hidden components that could capture recovery phrases and send them over a mobile network. Ledger has said its own chips, software and servers were not breached.

Blockchain data firm Bitquery's latest count, updated on October 15, puts the total taken at $102 million from 324 wallets across six chains. The operator losing the coins does not mean the scam's original victims get anything back.