Concerning USDT and Cryptocurrency Airdrops: Chinese Police Sudden Crackdown on Identity Fraud Suspects

Chinese authorities have apprehended a suspect accused of forging identities to claim StarkNet airdrop tokens (STRK). After illegally acquiring over 40,000 STRK tokens, the suspect exchanged them for more than 90,000 USDT stablecoins.

According to CoinTelegraph, the suspect used forged identities to submit over 40 fraudulent Early Community Member Plan (ECMP) airdrop forms, claiming more than 40,000 STRK tokens originally belonging to the victims.

Local media reported on April 30 that after the airdrop, the suspect transferred over 40,000 STRK tokens to an OKX (Okex) exchange wallet, where the tokens were exchanged for USDT stablecoins valued at over $91,000.

On April 25, the suspect, Lan (transliterated), was captured by police in Guangdong Province, along with a computer and two mobile phones.

Although scams and phishing attacks are common in the cryptocurrency sector, this seems to be the first instance of identity theft on such a large scale targeting other users' airdrops.

Cryptocurrency airdrops are a method of distributing new cryptocurrencies, typically aimed at early users who interact with specific protocols.

The StarkNet Foundation, supporting Ethereum Layer 2, launched a massive airdrop of 700 million STRK tokens on February 20, intended to reward Ethereum stakers and liquidity providers, StarkNet developers and users, and other contributors to the Web3 ecosystem.

This airdrop attracted significant attention, with the first batch of 45 million STRK tokens claimed in less than 90 minutes.

As of Thursday (May 2), the STRK token rose to $1.25, marking a daily increase of 1.16%.

Reflecting on February 20, an anonymous developer from Yearn.finance, Banteg, warned that the StarkNet eligibility list primarily included airdrop snatchers or professional airdrop hunters, who exploited the upcoming airdrops to farm protocols for financial gain.

According to the developers, out of 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses, approximately 701,544 were linked to duplicated or renamed GitHub accounts controlled by airdrop snatchers, who typically use multiple addresses for the same airdrop to maximize rewards.

In March 2023, it was revealed that airdrop hunters had consolidated tokens worth $3.3 million from the Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop across 1,496 wallets into two wallets they controlled.