FBI seizes $260k of belongings together with ETH, Bored Ape following ZachXBT tip

The FBI has seized greater than $260,000 of belongings, together with NFTs and cryptocurrency, in response to a forfeiture doc printed by the company on Feb. 4.

That doc says that the FBI seized a number of belongings from Chase Senecal, a resident of Brunswick, Maine. The company seized 86.5678 ETH ($116,433) and two NFTs: Bored Ape Yacht Membership #9658 ($95,495) and Doodle #3114 ($9,361).

Along with the roughly $221,000 of crypto belongings seized, the FBI additionally seized one non-crypto asset: an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Watch valued at $41,000.

The watch isn’t a crypto asset, however its buy led on to the opposite seizures. Self-described crypto sleuth ZachXBT, who was liable for initiating the investigation, famous in a weblog submit final September that Senecal — also called Horror (HZ) — doubtless paid for the watch with cryptocurrency. The posh watch’s buy “was straight funded with stolen cash from the hacked Twitter accounts,” he wrote in one tweet.

ZachXBT traced a collection of blockchain transactions and located that the account used to pay for the watch was linked to numerous hacks. The FBI seemingly took observe of his findings moderately rapidly, because it seized the objects weeks afterward Oct. 24, 2022.

ZachXBT posted an replace on the case yesterday, Feb. 3. He wrote that he was “very comfortable” to say that the FBI had seized the belongings because of his unique thread.

Earlier statements from ZachXBT indicated Senecal was concerned in a multi-million greenback scheme that had compromised greater than 600 Discord servers and greater than 12 Twitter accounts. On Feb. 3, he highlighted numerous accounts affected by the hack, together with these belonging to the NFT venture JRNY Membership and the animator DeeKay Kwon.

The FBI can be concerned in a number of unrelated crypto circumstances. In January alone, it made progress in issues in regards to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group, the crypto alternate Bitzlato, and Mango Market’s exploiter Avraham Eisenberg.