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Fake Ledger App on Apple’s Mac App Store Linked to $9.5 Million Crypto Theft

The case exposes how fake wallet apps in official stores capture seed phrases for fast exchange laundering.

Overview

  • Investigators say a phishing campaign active from Tuesday to Sunday drained at least $9.5 million from more than 50 users across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, Solana, and XRP.
  • Musician Garrett Dutton, known as G. Love, reported Saturday that he lost 5.92 BTC after a lookalike Ledger Live app prompted him to enter his 24‑word recovery phrase.
  • Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT traced Dutton’s funds through nine transactions to KuCoin deposit addresses, part of a wider flow that moved through 150‑plus KuCoin wallets and the AudiA6 mixing service.
  • Apple removed the malicious listing from the Mac App Store, and the company has not issued a public comment on how the clone passed review.
  • Ledger says its real desktop software never asks for a recovery phrase, a rule many victims missed in a repeat of earlier store‑borne scams, including a 2023 Microsoft Store case, during a period of rising crypto fraud losses.