It is worth noting that not all cryptocurrency scammers are geniuses, experienced programmers or anything like that. A story from the second half of last month comes to mind here, when the FBI arrested scammers who stole $243 million worth of bitcoins.

They went after a wealthy investor among the creditors of bankrupt platform Genesis and posed as representatives of Google Support and tech support for crypto exchange Gemini. He eventually believed there were problems with his account and held a video call with the scammers, where he revealed the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet.

Cryptocurrency scammer

However, as it turned out later, the young scammers used personal laptops with their own accounts for the operation. Moreover, they recorded the whole process on video, as a result of which the video, among other things, illuminated the real name of one of the group’s members.

Today’s perpetrator is smarter than that. And although he conducted a video call with one of the victims, the scammer allegedly used a filter to replace his face.

How cryptocurrencies are stolen

At the centre of the current scheme was a Twitter user with the nickname @ape_31, and its details were revealed by a well-known author of investigations into crypto scams under the pseudonym ZachXBT.

Scammers who steal NFT

By the way, the scammer has already deleted his accounts, so it is impossible to get to their contents. However, the screenshots needed were still preserved.

Here’s a short summary of the case, which is where ZachXBT started its fascinating investigative thread.

• The scammer most likely lives in the UK. He has stolen over $650,000 from at least 250 victims.
• The scammer’s main Twitter page is @ape_31. However, he also used the account @60711 along with many other accounts.
• The scammer’s strategy was to publish fake screenshots of extremely successful trades from a demo account on the Bybit exchange. To attract attention, he posted fake news.
• After attracting potential victims, he offered them to use the service of copytrading, i.e. repeating transactions after the scammer, who pretended to be a talented trader.
• He carried out the transactions himself, which meant that he received funds from gullible users who wanted to get Xs. As a result, the fraudster tried to increase the volume of stolen coins, after which he blocked the victim and looked for the next one.

Now let’s break down the scheme in detail along with examples.

Details of the cryptocurrency theft scheme

To find new victims, Ape 31 shared screenshots of transactions on a demo account on a cryptocurrency exchange. This allowed him to imitate his own skills and delight his victims with non-existent earnings, which allegedly also came from copytrading.

He also published fake news, which attracted the attention of users and were sometimes promoted by Twitter in the recommendations tab.

Here’s an example of something like this. Here, the scammer uses one account to post about the alleged hack of the Celestia blockchain project, while a second account writes a comment showing the result of his fake balance growing from $200,000 to $7.3 million.

Publication of fake news by scammer Ape 31 along with a fake screenshot of crypto transactions


Note the highlighted rectangle. In it, the dates on the chart are repeated, which means that the scammer used photoshop to correct the screenshots and made a mistake.
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The logic was to interest Twitter users who are not good at trading but dream of riches. He offered them to copy his trades for a supposedly small percentage, mentioning it casually.

Here is an example of such a tweet. As proof of his skill, the scammer posted the result of a deal with FRONT, which allegedly brought him $63,000.

The offer of copytrading services from the scammer Ape 31.


It is important to note that the scammer asked for $250-500 for subscribing to his channel. This is a relatively small amount, allowing him to increase the number of potential victims.


Examples of real cryptocurrency theft

ZachXBT gave examples of three victims and described exactly how they lost money.

The first user sent $500 for access to Ape 31 transactions. After the transaction, the scammer personally offered the user to conduct transactions for him along with some other bonuses.

He wanted $20,000 and noted that he supposedly had a “zero liquidation price”, meaning that his positions were not afraid of being forcibly closed with the loss of the entire account balance. Of course, in reality, there is no such thing.

However, the victim agreed to send the amount. As you can see from the screenshot of the correspondence, the operation was carried out in 154 SOL.

Correspondence with cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31, which leads to sending 154 SOLs

What did the scammer do next? He provided API keys to the victim so that he could observe trades that were actually conducted using the virtual balance. The victim saw the data and thought she was getting rich because the transactions were made with her funds.

However, in reality, the money was actually going to the scammer. In this case, he offered the victim to use his account for a challenge to increase the account from $20,000 to a million dollars, i.e. by tweeting the relevant transactions.

Towards the end, Ape 31 tried to get another $20,000 from the victim. He claimed that without them, he was unable to lock in profits and withdraw capital. This despite the fact that “he has over $100 million lying on Bybit.”

An attempt by cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31 to get another $20,000 from a victim

The second example ended with a loss of $3,000. The scammer talked about the possibility of increasing the balance from 10 to 100 thousand without any risks.

In this correspondence, the then potential victim admires the accuracy of the scammer’s trades because of his fake PNL screenshots. In his words, “it’s hard to believe how your trades move directly in the right direction.”

Correspondence with cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31, who promises to increase his portfolio from 10k to 100k in a few days

Alas, 16 minutes later, the victim already agrees to send $3,000 worth of BTC. Apparently, it was a considerable part of his capital in crypto.

Correspondence with cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31, which led to sending $3,000 in Bitcoin

The victim’s third example resulted in a loss of $500. However, he shared his TradingView account with the scammer, and the latter’s authorisation supposedly revealed his geolocation and IP. This is the UK.

Possible IP address of cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31

Ape 31 also tried to scam one investor by offering him a fake OTC deal – that is, a cryptocurrency exchange transaction directly. He allegedly wanted to sell him 15 million JUP tokens for $300,000 at a very low price.

An attempted scam by cryptocurrency scammer Ape 31 through an OTC transaction

The potential victim secured a call with the scammer. This allowed her to capture his possible voice on this recording.

She also recorded the video call. However, users have suggested that what is happening on the clip resembles the use of a facial replacement tool with artificial intelligence involved. That is, it is unlikely to be the real identity of the scammer.

After communicating with scam victims, ZachXBT recorded 16 deposit addresses used by the scammer. Over the past year, he has received more than $650,000 from at least 250 people.

Schematic of cryptocurrency movement by the Ape 31 scammer from ZachXBT

However, the analyst notes that the real amount of losses could be much larger. Still, Ape 31 creates new addresses to receive coins after each transfer.

Judging by the records on Twitter, many representatives of the cryptocurrency community have fallen on the hook of the scammer. This is confirmed by the following screenshot – and there are considerably more of them.

Messages of Twitter users who fell victim to the Ape 31 scammer


The conclusions of the situation are deplorable: scammers actively use the most unexpected schemes, taking large sums from novice investors. The latter find themselves mesmerised by screenshots with fictitious profits and want to get at least a small part of what is depicted. However, in the end, everything ends up with the loss of capital - and for some people, the last money.

In any case, it is quite easy to protect yourself from such deception. First of all, you need to stop believing in successful traders who are supposedly ready to make millionaires out of you for a small percentage. If they really knew how to trade, they would definitely not waste time communicating with other people for the sake of a few hundred.

You should also refuse to send crypto to strangers on the internet. And while some major exchanges like Binance do offer a copy-trading platform, transferring coins to some Twitter user is always a bad idea. The current story clearly confirms this.


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