Stalking a Scammer in Philadelphia: The Gang Discovers a Criminal Enterprise

It all started with a nut.

10 days ago I discovered Dextools. That website features a page called Live New Pairs, where foolhardy would-be crypto millionaires can find brand new shitcoins hot off the press. Sounds like a great way to buy in before the pump, right?

10 days ago I chose NUT from that page. Didn't spend much, I used a junk wallet, I figured it was a scam. But why not? I've been scammed before, bought into honest but failed projects before. Who cares, maybe I'll make a killing.

Of course, NUT was a scam. The liquidity was drained minutes after I made my swap. I was not surprised, but I was a bit angry and curious in who had just scammed me with their NUT. Thanks to the beauty of the blockchain, I traced the path of this scammer, who I dubbed Shitrugger. I was able to see that Shitrugger was a serial shitcoin creator, who had created and rugged 5 shitcoins that very day. I was able to track his path to its origin, which was a Bybit account (Bybit is just another CEX, probably shitty, blocked to USA customers like yours truly).

I'll admit, I became a bit obsessed. In the time it took to backtrack Shitrugger's trail of shitcoins, he had gone on to create 20 additional shitcoins over the next 3 days. I was blown away at the pace of this guy. I had to do something. The streets were littered with shitcoins, I felt I had to at least try to put a stop to it.

From my previous r/cc posts on this subject, wonderful users aided me with information and guidance. First was by discovering that Shitrugger was blacklisting any wallets that swapped for his shitcoins; swapping back for any gains was impossible. At this point I emailed Bybit. I did not expect even a reply, since I could not create an account. But to my surprise, they responded, asking for more information. I dumped transaction hashes, ethereum addresses, screen shots, everything I could. Did I actually do a good deed here, and put Shitrugger to a stop? NO. Bybit responded back with a "we're sorry".

But I wasn't done. A redditor recommended the site Arkham Intelligence to aid in tracking Shitrugger, after I had posted a screen shot of my feeble Excel spreadsheet attempt to navigate all the shitcoins. I applied for the Arkham beta, and was accepted. This is where the shitcoin hit the fan.

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Just one \"chain\" of the operation

The image above is a VERY compressed screenshot of my Arkham visualizer. I had to collapse most transaction because what I discovered were dozens of secondary wallets used to move funds around, and literally hundreds of trading wallets, used to create fake volume. Every single wallet was linked to the Shitrugger, and the funds were getting funneled into an Arbitrum bridge. So, 25 shitcoin wallets, about 60 secondary wallets, and roughly 200 trading wallets, all working together to funnel this money.

Except it wasn't just 25 shitcoins. It's over 100 in the past 10 days. I've found about 400 secondary wallets. And I'm well past 1000 fake trading volume wallets.

By adding name tags to wallets in order to track them, I was able to discover links that led to other shitcoins - separate "chains" as I call them. Shitrugger would transfer from Bybit and begin a simple process: Create shitcoin, rugpull after two hours, transfer funds to new wallet, create shitcoin, rinse/repeat until he sends to Stargate Arbitrum bridge. That is one chain. But Shitrugger would reuse some secondary wallets, and I'd follow those and discover new "chains" with a Bybit beginning and Stargate end.

These "chains" were running simultaneously. Thousands and thousands of wallets trading, moving, and creating. My theory so far is that I am watching not one Shitrugger, but Shitrugger Global Enterprise. I don't think one person can keep this scam going like clockwork.

Every time I start name tagging secondary wallets and following their path, I discover a new "chain". I have HUNDREDS of secondary wallets I've yet to follow because I'm still working on previous chains. I'm just guessing here, but I'd say this organization has 50 rugpull coins active at any given moment. I've followed their Arbitrum wallets - they have shitcoins there, too.

At this point, I don't know what else to do. Bybit was a bust, and they were the one link to a real identity. All I'm doing now is following an endless amount of shitcoins, a never ending stream of shit clogging the Ethereum toilet. Maybe this is North Korea in action. Maybe it's some shady Binance thing. But in any case, millions of dollars is getting made in this scam. And it's a simple scam. Terrifyingly simple.

But there is an upside to this: you are completely safe if you do not buy shitcoins, ESPECIALLY NEW ONES. The main target of this scam are bots. Bots that scoop up a coin as soon as a trading pair is made. If you have one of these bots: STOP. These shitcoins are only alive for a few hours. Let Shitrugger starve. Let every scammer starve. They feed off of people trying to beat the pump. Just buy BTC and ETH, farm your MOONS.

Thanks for listening to my depressing TEDtalk.

EDIT: Note for future me. List of entities to contact:

Coffeezilla, ZachXBT, Secret Service ( u/SF-USSS ), Singapore authorities (MAS). Thank you to everyone yet again. Every time I think I reach the limit of what I can do or understand, people here give suggestions and recommendations that open up another avenue.