After meeting con artists in Rome who claimed to be investors, the Web3 co-founder known as Webaverse stated that his company was the victim in a $4 million crypto heist.
Ahad Shamss, the co-founder, stated that the most unusual aspect of the incident was that the cryptocurrency had been taken from a Trust Wallet which had just been created. He also said that the hack took places during the meeting.
He claims that the burglars did not know the private key because he wasn’t connected to any public WiFi network at the moment and would not have been able to access it.
Shams believes the burglars had access to her wallet while Shams was taking pictures of the contents to record how much she had spent.
The letter was published on Twitter by Shams and Webaverse on February 7, and includes testimonies from Shams and Shams. It explains that they met “Mr. Safra” after weeks of negotiations about the possibility of receiving funds.
Shams gave the following explanation. “We communicated by email and video chats to Mr. Shams provided the following explanation: “We communicated with ‘Mr.
“He said that he had been swindled by people in crypto before and so he collected our IDs and made it a condition that we fly into Rome to see him. It was important to meet IRL and get to know who we were doing business with,” he continued. “He said that he had been swindled by people in crypto.”
Shams was initially skeptical and agreed to meet “Mr. Safra,” his “banker”, in person in the lobby at a Rome-based hotel. Shams was to present “Mr. Safra”, the “proofs of funds” necessary to start the “paperwork,” during this meeting.
“Despite the fact we had reluctantly accepted the Trust Wallet evidence’, we set up a brand-new Trust Wallet account at our home on a device that isn’t used often for interfacing with them. We reasoned that even if our seed phrases or private keys were lost, the money would still be safe.
The three of us sat down next to each other when we first met and put four million USDC into our Trust Wallet. “Mr. Safra” asked to see the Trust Wallet app’s balances. He pulled out his phone to pretend to “shoot some photos”.
Shams stated that he believed everything was in order since “Mr. Safra”, had no access to any seed phrases or private keys.
However, “Mr. Safra” disappeared without a trace as he left the conference room to confer with other bank colleagues. Shams then witnessed the disappearance and theft of the cash.
“We were never able again to locate him. The money disappeared from the wallet after a few minutes.
Shams reported the theft almost immediately after it happened to a Rome police station. She then sent an Internet Crime Complaint form (IC3) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America a few days later.
