CoinWorld.com Report:
ZachXBT does not operate in the shadows; he is the shadow. This self-taught anonymous cryptocurrency investigator has been tracking scammers, hackers, and criminals in the industry for the past three years. From industry elites to celebrities and influential figures, no one is too big for Zach. No one knows his real name, where he lives, or even what he looks like. But cryptocurrency thieves certainly know his reputation. Zach’s journey as a blockchain investigator is a good book.
Andy Greenberg of Wired recently highlighted his relentless pursuit of cryptocurrency scammers in a detailed report, outlining the sharp mind of this ruthless investigator. Besides his sharp mind and tireless efforts to track the darkest cryptocurrency transactions, Zach has become the go-to for sniffing out fraud and stolen funds.
The profile starts with a story on August 19th. Zach is at the airport, preparing to catch a flight when his phone receives an alert. It’s the kind of alert he lives for: $600,000 worth of Bitcoin being transferred to a small exchange.
Zach immediately senses that something is off. This is much larger than the typical transactions he sees on exchanges. As he reaches the boarding gate, more ping signals hit his phone—another $1 million, then $2 million.
He knows this isn’t a lucky day trader cashing out. It’s a theft, and Zach is racing against time to find out where the money is going. Before the airplane’s Wi-Fi kicks in at 10,000 feet, he traces the funds back to a Bitcoin wallet untouched since 2012. Within hours, he discovers that someone has stolen $243 million from a victim.
As soon as the airplane’s Wi-Fi connects, Zach gets back to work, mapping out the stolen Bitcoin as it moves through various exchanges and coin mixing services, clearly in an attempt to cover its tracks. This is typical cryptocurrency money laundering.
By the time his plane lands, Zach has identified three main suspects and sends real-time theft alerts to his 650,000 followers. While he helps apprehend some individuals, the case isn’t fully closed. Authorities manage to seize $79 million, but over $100 million is still unaccounted for. The third suspect identified by Zach remains at large.
According to Cryptopolitan, this individual may be linked to a violent carjacking and kidnapping case in Connecticut, where the parents of a victim were targeted because their son was believed to control a significant amount of cryptocurrency assets.
Despite the majority of the funds remaining unaccounted for (over $100 million), Zach doesn’t rest. He continues to follow leads and work with law enforcement to recover more funds.
Meanwhile, the still-unarrested third suspect remains elusive, even though there is evidence linking him to the Connecticut kidnapping case. The suspect reportedly targeted the parents of a wealthy cryptocurrency investor, believing that the victim’s son had access to a large amount of digital currency.
Since Zach began serving as an online detective in 2021, he has tracked billions of dollars in stolen funds, helped recover $210 million in cryptocurrency, and exposed scams that most law enforcement agencies didn’t touch until it was too late.
The numbers speak for themselves, and Zach has become the ultimate law enforcer in the cryptocurrency field. He operates almost entirely on donations, in the form of contributions and cryptocurrency donations from strangers who support his work.
So far, the detective claims to have received approximately $1.3 million in cryptocurrency donations. Secret Service analyst Joe McGill stated, “His success is directly tied to the success of the investigations.” He has closely collaborated with Zach on multiple cases.
McGill is not the only one impressed by Zach’s accomplishments. Nick Bucks, founder of cryptocurrency investigation company Five I’s, half-jokingly wonders if Zach is a machine. Zach’s ability to complete hundreds of transactions in a matter of hours is impressive.
Bucks recalls giving Zach a list of 500 transactions on a Saturday night, asking him to manually analyze them. By the next afternoon, Zach had connected the dots, completing a task that would have taken others days or weeks.
Taking down the big players
By around 2022, Zach had made a name for himself in the cryptocurrency underworld, but his most notable bankruptcy case had yet to come.
One case that directly caught the attention of law enforcement agencies was Zach’s investigation into the theft of $2.5 million worth of NFTs through a phishing attack. This time, the thief was not an anonymous teenager but two French hackers.
Zach’s meticulous blockchain tracing led French prosecutors to arrest five suspects linked to the theft. His work snowballed, with each investigation leading to larger cases and more money.
Last year, Zach tracked down $9 million stolen from the cryptocurrency project Platypus. Within a few hours, he identified the suspects. The two were arrested within a week, and although the charges were later dropped, millions of dollars were recovered.
In the same year, he traced the theft of $25 million from Uranium Finance. The thieves behind this robbery laundered the funds in a creative way, purchasing rare magic: The Gathering cards.
“Seeing law enforcement take action on things I shared with them has been incredibly fulfilling. It makes me feel like maybe I really am doing what I’ve always been meant to do,” he said.
Connections to North Korea
One of Zach’s biggest investigations to date occurred in 2023 when he exposed a North Korean hacker network, Lazarus Group, that had stolen over $200 million in cryptocurrency. Zach discovered that the organization had conducted at least 25 hacking attacks, many of which had never been publicly reported.
He also uncovered elaborate operations where North Korean IT personnel infiltrated tech companies and were rewarded with cryptocurrency. These workers were quietly siphoning funds back to the regime.
In one case, a hacker managed to get hired by the NFT company Munchables but instead stole $62 million worth of cryptocurrency. Thanks to Zach’s ongoing digging, the hacker returned the money, unable to launder it without attracting attention.
Zach’s collaboration with law enforcement continues to expand. By mid-2023, he had helped freeze $7 million linked to North Korean hackers.
