Failed exit scam – Scammers thought they had pulled off yet another bogus investment scam, but Binance put a stop to their project. Almost all of the funds have been blocked, and they will be returned to the victims.
A plan that (fortunately) did not go as planned
This November 4, the famous crypto exchange Binance revealed on its blog that it succeeded in thwarting the exit scam plans of the (fake) crypto project called Wine Swap .
Wine Swap presented itself as one of the many AMMs ( Automated Market Makers ) very fashionable in the current trend of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Launched on October 13 via the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the Wine Swap project received 19 different types of crypto from 119 separate addresses, totaling a value of $ 345,000 in the span of an hour .
It did not take more to satisfy the scammers, who immediately put an end to this fake AMM to pocket the cryptos on their wallets and leave with the cash register .
Centralized platforms do not only have disadvantages
Binance Security teams were quickly alerted to this attempted exit scam, and they closely followed the crypto transactions from Wine Swap.
The criminals made the mistake of channeling almost all of the funds through Binance Bridge , a service providing access to inter-blockchain liquidity. This is where, at first, the funds could be frozen by the centralized crypto-exchange, when they had already all been converted into stablecoins, BNB, ETH and LINK .
The next day, October 14, Binance Security teams contacted the scammers and, caught in the act , they “quickly cooperated” to return the stolen funds.
Thus, after a recovery process, 99.9% of the amount of the $ 345,000 in stolen cryptos could be recovered .
The Binance OTC (over-the-counter) team then helped convert these funds back into the original cryptos and amounts, with a view to repaying victims . The restitution should be completed within the next few days .