Hackers took over soccer star Kylian Mbappe's X account on Wednesday and launched a cryptocurrency scam among the player's 14 million followers.
ESPN Mbappe has reportedly just completed a transfer to Spanish soccer powerhouse Real Madrid in a deal that will see him earn an annual salary of more than $16 million and a signing-on bonus of $166 million over the life of his five-year contract.
Football players are their own X Account About two weeks later, hackers allegedly began sharing memes and quotes to his 14.4 million fans.
“This guy lost over $1 million in just one hour!”
Post Content to ridicule Soccer star Lionel Messi, Trolling I participate in various professional teams and make political statements.
“Israel is shit” post he said with a clown emoji.
About six minutes later, the account was deleted by another post Four Palestinian flags with the words “Free Palestine” written on them.
Apart from fun games, hackers Promoted A cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme to steal large sums of money.
The hackers reportedly used the stolen accounts to promote the coin $MBAPPE, increasing its value by 4,000%. CointelegraphThe hacker's post caused the coin's market cap to skyrocket to $460 million, but its value has since plummeted to less than $100,000.
Hackers Alleged $100,000 profit in about an hour.
“Don't be fooled. $MBAPPE scam.'
However, some savvy investors who are not believed to have been involved in the scam quickly bought and sold the coins and made some profits.
One unknown individual bought $28 worth of shares when the market cap was just $80,000, making a profit of about $125,000.
Reports also emerged that another investor lost approximately $1 million.
“Someone creates a new wallet, [$1.03M] Buy… $MBAPPE Popular crypto pages “in one transaction” Look on Chain I wrote it.
“[It] It's now worth just $9,200. This guy lost over $1 million in just one hour.
The scam has spread quickly and even on popular trading platforms Crypto.com He warned his followers not to be fooled.
“Don't be fooled. $MBAPPE “It's a scam,” it read. “Scammers hacked Killian. [sic] “Mbappe's X account was set up today to promote a scam,” the attached image reads.
Interestingly, this scam is similar to other celebrity schemes in recent years. In simple terms, a celebrity creates a coin, buys a large portion of it, and promotes it to their followers as their latest project. Once the market cap is inflated, the creator can sell their shares for a profit. This may not rise to the level of criminality unless the creator encourages their followers to buy.
According to InvestopediaHowever, any scheme making promises/recommendations regarding stocks or securities based on false, misleading or materially exaggerated statements will be illegal.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censorship and sign up for our newsletter to receive stories like this directly to your inbox. Register here!
