A COINBASE customer is counting millions of dollars in losses after the Bitcoin (BTC) he bought on the US-based crypto exchange was stolen.
The Coinbase customer bought 200 Bitcoin in April, worth $12,380,000 at time of writing, according to Business Insider.
Per the report, the Coinbase customer identified by the initials G.R. received a fake notification informing him that his account was locked after purchasing the Bitcoin. G.R. then called a number provided in the fake notification under the assumption that it was a Coinbase customer service representative on the other end.
G.R. was then instructed to make a number of changes to his Coinbase account by the person impersonating the crypto exchange’s customer representative, known only as “unidentified individual 1 (UI-1)”.
The changes included allowing remote access to the Coinbase account, according to a complaint filed in California cited by Business Insider.
Says Assistant US Attorney Dan G. Boyle,
“Once granted access to the Victim Account, UI-1 increased the daily transaction limit and also attempted to deactivate certain notifications and alert settings on the Victim Account.”
The report says that Bitcoin and Stellar (XLM) worth millions of dollars were stolen moments after G.R. made the changes to the Coinbase account.
According to the report, the stolen funds were moved through various accounts via a series of transactions. About 10.2 Bitcoin ($622,939) was channeled to an account held with Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global.
Huobi has agreed to freeze the 10.2 Bitcoin until the resolution of the investigation, according to the report.
