Well, it happened again. Another major crypto theft, and this time it’s a trader who really should have known better. A wallet drainer attack on Thursday cleaned out over $6.5 million from an account that had been active for more than four years. The security group Web3 Antivirus was the one that spotted it and put out the alert.
A Long-Time Player Gets Hit
The weird thing is, this wasn’t some new, careless user. Records show this wallet, starting with 0x0d18D…, had been around since 2021. The owner was actively trading and staking on big-name platforms like Lido and Aave. They knew what they were doing. But all it took was signing a few phishing “permit” signatures—something that looks legit but absolutely isn’t—and everything was gone. Just like that. It makes you wonder how secure any of this really is.
How the Drain Went Down
Looking at the data on Etherscan, the whole thing was over in minutes. It started just after 9:28 PM UTC. One of the biggest single moves was 188 stETH, worth over $800,000, sent straight to a known drainer address. Then another 753 stETH, valued at about $3.23 million, followed. The stolen tokens were converted almost immediately, with some even pushed into Lido’s withdrawal queue, maybe to try and obscure the trail.
But it wasn’t just about the big Ethereum moves. The drainer also took smaller chunks of wrapped Bitcoin—eleven separate transfers, each around 1.93 units. It all adds up. These attacks aren’t always about the one big score; sometimes they chip away until there’s nothing left.
Following the Money
Groups like Scam Sniffer have been tracking where the funds went. Not long after the attack, 123 ETH was bridged out of the Ethereum ecosystem. It ended up on a Bitcoin address and a TRON account. Other chunks moved through cross-chain protocols like NEAR. It’s a classic laundering tactic—spread it out, move it fast, make it hard to follow.
Meanwhile, on social media, analysts are trying to help. One on-chain investigator, Specter, publicly asked the victim to reach out, saying he might have useful information. It’s a small gesture, but in situations like this, every little bit counts.
A Strange Coincidence in Canada
Oddly enough, this all went down on the same day Canadian police announced their own big crypto news. The RCMP says it seized over $56 million in digital assets—the largest haul in the country’s history—from a platform called TradeOgre. Authorities claim the platform wasn’t registered properly and didn’t identify its users, which made it easy for, well, shady money to move through.
They think most of the funds were criminal to begin with. It’s a reminder that while individual thefts like this one are devastating, there’s a whole other layer of illicit activity happening in the background. Makes the whole ecosystem feel a bit like the wild west sometimes, doesn’t it?
