ZachXBT operates not in the shadows; he is the shadow. This self-taught anonymous cryptocurrency investigator has been tracking scammers, hackers, and criminals in the industry for the past three years. From industry elites to celebrities and influential figures, no one is too big for Zach. Nobody knows his real name, where he lives, or even what he looks like. But cryptocurrency thieves definitely know his reputation. Zach’s journey as a blockchain investigator is a compelling story.
Recently, Andy Greenberg from Wired highlighted his relentless pursuit of cryptocurrency scammers in a detailed report, giving us a glimpse into the sharp mind of this relentless investigator. Aside from his keen mind and unwavering efforts in tracking the darkest transactions in cryptocurrency, Zach has become the go-to person for sniffing out fraud and stolen funds.
The profile begins with a story on August 19th. Zach is at the airport, ready to catch a flight, when his phone receives an alert. It’s the kind of alert he lives for: $600,000 worth of Bitcoin being transferred to a small exchange. Zach immediately senses that something is off. This is much larger than the typical transactions he sees on exchanges. As he reaches the boarding gate, more pings hit his phone – $1 million, then $2 million.
He knows this isn’t just a lucky day for an intraday trader cashing out. It’s a theft, and Zach is racing against time to find out where the money is going. Before the plane’s Wi-Fi kicks in at 10,000 feet, he traces the funds to a Bitcoin wallet untouched since 2012. Within hours, he discovers that $243 million was stolen from a victim.
Once the Wi-Fi is connected on the plane, Zach gets back to work, mapping the stolen Bitcoin as it moves through various exchanges and coin mixing services, clearly an attempt to cover the tracks. This is typical cryptocurrency money laundering. The thieves are quickly splitting the funds across platforms, each charging exorbitant fees that no savvy investor would touch. Only one type of person would pay these fees. Criminals in a hurry.
According to Cryptopolitan, by the time his plane lands, Zach has identified three key suspects and sends out a real-time theft alert to his 650,000 followers. While he helps apprehend some individuals, the case is not fully closed. Authorities manage to seize $79 million, but over $100 million is still unaccounted for. The third suspect identified by Zach is still on the run.
The report suggests that this individual may be linked to a violent carjacking and kidnapping case in Connecticut, where the parents of a victim were targeted because their son was believed to control a significant amount of cryptocurrency assets.
Despite most of the funds being unaccounted for (over $100 million still missing), Zach doesn’t rest. He continues to follow leads and works with law enforcement to recover more funds. Meanwhile, the elusive third suspect remains at large, with evidence indicating a connection to the Connecticut kidnapping case. It is reported that the suspect targeted the parents of a wealthy cryptocurrency investor, believing their son had access to a large amount of digital currency.
Since Zach took on the role of an online detective in 2021, he has tracked billions of dollars in stolen funds, helped recover $210 million in cryptocurrency, and exposed scams that most law enforcement agencies didn’t touch until it was too late.
The numbers speak for themselves, and Zach has become the ultimate security enforcer in the cryptocurrency field. He operates almost entirely on donations, in the form of grants and cryptocurrency donations from strangers who support his work.
So far, the detective claims to have received around $1.3 million in cryptocurrency donations. Secret Service analyst Joe McGill states, “His success is directly correlated to the success of the investigations.” He has closely collaborated with Zach on multiple cases.
McGill is not the only one impressed by Zach’s accomplishments. Nick Bucks, founder of cryptocurrency investigation company Five I’s, half-jokingly wonders if Zach is a machine. Zach’s ability to complete hundreds of transactions within hours is truly impressive.
Bucks recalls giving Zach a list of 500 transactions to manually analyze on a Saturday night. By the next afternoon, Zach had connected the dots, completing a task that would take others days or weeks.
Toppling the Big Players
By around 2022, Zach had gained notoriety in the cryptocurrency underworld, but his most notable case of bankruptcy had yet to come.
One of the cases that directly caught the attention of law enforcement was his investigation into the theft of $2.5 million worth of NFTs through phishing attacks. This time, the thieves were not anonymous teenagers but two French hackers.
Zach’s meticulous blockchain tracking led French prosecutors to arrest five suspects connected to the theft. His work snowballed, with each investigation leading to bigger cases and more money.
Last year, Zach tracked down the $9 million stolen from the cryptocurrency project Platypus. Within a few hours, he identified the suspects. The two were arrested within a week, and although the charges were later dropped, millions of dollars were recovered.
In the same year, he traced the $25 million stolen from Uranus Financial. The thieves behind this heist laundered the money in a creative way – buying rare magic: the gathering cards.
He said, “Seeing law enforcement take action on things I’ve shared with them is incredibly satisfying. It makes me feel like maybe I’m really doing what I’ve always been meant to do.”
Connection to North Korea
One of Zach’s biggest investigations to date occurred in 2023 when he exposed a North Korean hacker network, Lazarus Group, which stole over $200 million in cryptocurrency. Zach discovered that the group had conducted at least 25 hacking attacks, many of which were never publicly reported.
He also uncovered a complex operation where North Korean IT personnel infiltrated tech companies and were compensated in cryptocurrency. These workers were quietly siphoning funds back to the regime.
In one case, a hacker managed to get employed by the NFT company Munchables but stole $62 million in cryptocurrency instead. Thanks to Zach’s ongoing digging, the hacker returned the money, unable to launder it without drawing attention.
Zach’s collaboration with law enforcement continues to expand. By mid-2023, he had helped freeze $7 million associated with North Korean hackers.
