Pop Superstar Jay Chou Loses $550,000 Worth of NFTs to Fraudsters

Taiwanese pop superstar Jay Chou has had $550,000 worth of non-fungible tokens stolen from him after falling victim to a phishing scam.

The scammer made away with an NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection that was gifted to him by famous Taiwanese singer Jeffrey Hwang (aka Machi Big Brother). He also lost an NFT from Mutant Ape Yacht Club and two NFTs from the Doodles.

The theft was confirmed by one of Asia’s biggest stars earlier today in his Instagram post.

Chou says that he initially thought that the theft was an April Fools joke, before eventually realizing that he actually no longer had access to his precious NFTs. As explained by on-chain sleuth @zachxbt, fraudsters purchase verified Twitter accounts for a few thousand dollars to run giveaway scams. Scammers usually use bots to trick people into clicking links that direct them to a phishing site and drain them of their NFTs.

 Bad actors also use other popular social media platforms, such as Instagram, to hunt for potential victims. It may take only a one-second judgment lapse before one parts ways with his or her assets forever.

Earlier today, an official Discord server run by Bored Ape Yacht Club was compromised by hackers. In its tweet, the official Twitter account of the most successful NFT project to date warned that it was not doing any April Fools airdrops, confirming the hack.

According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, the hacker managed to successfully steal one NFT after posting a fake link to a fake mint on one of the server’s channels.

Bored Ape Yacht Club claims that it “immediately” detected the incident.