‘Haunts me to this day’ — Crypto project hacked for $4M in a hotel lobby

The co-founder of Web3 metaverse game engine “Webaverse” has revealed they were victims of a $4 million crypto h after meeting with scammers posing as investors in a hotel lobby in Rome. 

The bizarre aspect of the story, according to co-founder Ahad Shams, is that the crypto was stolen from a newly set up Trust Wallet and that the hack took place during the meeting at some point.

He claims the thieves could not have possibly seen the private key, nor was he connected to a public WiFi network at the time.

The thieves were somehow able to gain access while taking a photo of the wallet’s balance, believes Shams.

The letter which was shared on Twitter on Feb. 7, contains statements from Webarverse and Shams, explaining that they met with a man named “Mr Safra” on Nov. 26 after several weeks of discussions about potential funding.

“We connected with “Mr Safra” over email and video calls and he explained that he wanted to invest in exciting Web3 companies,” explained Shams.

“He explained that he had been scammed by people in crypto before and so he collected our IDs for KYC, and stipulated as a requirement that we fly into Rome to meet him because it was important to meet IRL to ‘get comfortable’ with who we were each doing business with,” he added.

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— 0xngmi (aggregatoor arc) (@0xngmi) February 6, 2023

While initially “skeptical,” Sham agreed to meet “Mr Safra” and his “banker” in person in a hotel lobby in Rome, where he would later show the project’s “proof of funds” — who Mr. Safra claimed was his requirement to begin the “paperwork.”

“Though we grudgingly agreed to the Trust Wallet ‘proof’, we created a fresh Trust Wallet account at home using a device we didn’t primarily use to interact with them. Our thinking was that without our private keys or seed phrases, the funds would be safe anyway,” said Shams. 

However, turns out Sham he was thoroughly mistaken:

“When we met, we sat across from these three men and transferred 4m USDC into the Trust Wallet. “Mr Safra” asked to see the balances on the Trust Wallet app and took out his phone to “take some pictures”.

Shams explained that he thought it was okay because no private keys or seed phrases were revealed to “Mr. Safra.”

But after “Mr. Safra” took a photo and stepped out of the meeting room to consult his banking colleagues, the crew vanished and Shams saw the funds siphoned out.

“We never saw him again. Minutes…