Hackers push $460M crypto scam via soccer star’s X account — $1M lost in minutes

On Wednesday, hackers controlled soccer star Kylian Mbappe's X account and pushed a crypto scam on his 14 million followers.

ESPN reported that Mbappe is fresh off a transfer to Spanish soccer giant Real Madrid. The deal will see him make over $16 million per year in salary and receive a $166 million signing bonus spread out over the five years of his contract.

The soccer player hadn't made any posts on his X account for about two weeks until a hacker allegedly started sharing memes and statements to his 14.4 million fans.

'This person lost more than $1M in just 1 hour!'

The posts included mocking fellow soccer star Lionel Messi, trolling different professional teams, and even making political statements.

"F*** Israel," a post said with a clown emoji.

About six minutes later, the account made another post with four Palestinian flags, reading, "FREE PALESTINE."

Aside from the fun and games, the hacker promoted a crypto currency pump-and-dump scheme making off with a large sum of money.

With the stolen account, the hacker promoted the coin $MBAPPE, inflating its value by a reported 4,000%. According to Cointelegraph, the hacker's post boosted the coin's market cap to a whopping $460 million before it tanked to less than $100,000 in value.

The hacker made off with an alleged $100,000 profit in about an hour.

'Don’t fall for the $MBAPPE scam.'

However, some savvy investors, likely not involved in the scam, made some money by quickly buying and selling the coin.

One unknown person made a profit of about $125,000 when they bought shares worth $28 when the market cap was at just $80,000.

Other reports popped up about another investor losing around $1 million:

"Someone created a new wallet and spent [$1.03M] to buy ... $MBAPPE in a single transaction," the popular crypto page Lookonchain wrote.

"[It] is now only worth $9.2K. This person lost more than $1M in just 1 hour!"

The scam spread so rapidly that even popular trading platform Crypto.com warned its followers about falling for it.

"Don’t fall for the $MBAPPE scam," it wrote. "Scammers hacked Kyllian [sic] Mbappe's X account today to promote a scam," the attached image said.

Interestingly, the scam mirrors other schemes made by celebrities over recent years. Simply put, notable people can create a coin, buy a significant portion of it, and promote it to their followers as their latest project. Once the market cap is inflated, creators can sell off their shares for a profit. This may not rise to the level of criminal unless they recommend their followers buy-in.

According to Investopedia, a scheme becomes illegal when it makes promises/recommendations about a stock or security based on false, misleading, or greatly exaggerated statements.

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