Capture of Suspect:

Chinese authorities have captured a suspect, identified as Lan Mou, suspected of identity forgery related to the StarkNet (STRK) airdrop. The suspect assumed other people’s identities and submitted over 40 false Early Community Member Program (ECMP) airdrop forms, claiming over 40,000 STRK tokens that initially belonged to the victims.

Airdrop Scam Details:

After the airdrop, the suspect transferred over 40,000 STRK tokens to an OKX wallet, which were converted to over $91,000 worth of Tether (USDT). This incident is notable for its scale, involving identity theft for claiming other users’ airdrops on a large scale, which seems to be a first in the cryptocurrency space.

StarkNet Airdrop Background:

The StarkNet Foundation launched a 700 million STRK token airdrop on Feb. 20 to reward Ethereum solo and liquid stakes, Starknet developers and users, as well as projects and developers outside the Web3 ecosystem. The airdrop saw significant interest, with the first 45 million STRK tokens claimed in less than 90 minutes.

Airdrop Squatters:

The airdrop eligibility list mainly included airdrop squatters, or professional airdrop hunters, who farm protocols with incoming airdrops for financial gains. Approximately 701,544 of the 1.3 million eligible wallet addresses were allegedly linked to repeat or renamed GitHub accounts controlled by airdrop squatters.

Previous Airdrop Scams:

In March 2023, airdrop hunters consolidated $3.3 million worth of tokens from the then Arbitrum (ARB) airdrop from 1,496 wallets into just two wallets they controlled.