Rap trio Migos’ Instagram hacked to extort Solana co-founder

The Instagram account of former US rap trio Migos was hacked in an apparent attempt to blackmail Solana co-founder Raj Gokal.

On May 27, Migos’ Instagram account posted at least seven images seen by Cointelegraph that have since been deleted. Two of the images appeared to depict Gokal holding up his passport and driver’s license, clearly showing the full details of each document.

The account’s hacker tagged Gokal in one of the images that apparently showed him with the caption “you should’ve paid the 40 btc,” while another image depicting Gokal was captioned “it was only 40 btc.. should’ve paid,” in what appears to be a references to a failed extortion attempt.

Another image posted by the account hacker shows what the caption claimed was Gokal’s wife holding up a driver’s license, while a further two images appear to be a dump of private information, including mobile phone numbers and email addresses.

The type of photos posted, where a person holds personal identifying documents in clear view of the camera with their face visible, are commonly used by crypto exchanges in Know Your Customer checks.

However, it is unknown where the photos seemingly depicting Gokal and his wife originated and how they ended up being used in the apparent blackmail attempt.

The Solana Foundation and Gokal were contacted for comment.

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Gokal had posted to X on May 20 that attackers had “been trying to take control” of his email and social media accounts, warning his followers to be suspicious of any out-of-the-ordinary posts.

AI deepfakes or KYC data breach?

While it isn’t known whether artificial intelligence was used in the images, deepfakes have been used in attempts to extort crypto. 

In April, podcaster Scott Melker said that scammers had created a fake version of his driver’s license and managed to steal at least $4 million from one victim. 

How KYC information is gathered and stored by crypto exchanges has also been in the spotlight recently.

Earlier this month, Coinbase was hit with a lawsuit from users who alleged the crypto exchange breached local biometric privacy laws by failing to disclose that third-party vendors were used to verify the IDs of its customers.

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Additional reporting by Jesse Coghlan.