Musk and Trump used to shill crypto scam after Indian influencer’s YouTube hack

Cryptocurrency scammers have hijacked the channels of Indian YouTuber and influencer Ranveer Allahbadia to promote a scam promising returns of up to 200% on crypto investments.

On September 25, Indian content creator, entrepreneur, and social media influencer Allahbadia became the latest victim of crypto scammers after hackers hijacked and rebranded several of his YouTube channels to livestream an AI-altered video of Elon Musk urging viewers to invest in a ‘double your crypto’ scam.

His first channel, BeerBiceps, with over 7.8 million subscribers, his personal channel Ranveer Allahbadia, with over 9.4 million followers, and his third channel, which broadcasts podcast clips reaching 1.2 million viewers, were hacked and rebranded to mimic Elon Musk’s famous automotive and clean energy company Tesla.

AI-altered Elon Musk on Ranveer Allahbadia’s channel rebranded as Tesla | Source: YouTube

The hackers changed the channels’ logos and usernames, and deleted all previous content to make them appear like official Tesla platforms, aiming to deceive viewers with fake cryptocurrency giveaways and fraudulent livestreams featuring Musk’s likeness.

In the past, crypto scammers have long impersonated Musk and his companies like SpaceX to scam crypto enthusiasts.

But in this case, Musk was featured alongside US Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the thumbnail, likely an attempt to cash in on the hype surrounding the 2024 elections, where cryptocurrencies have become a hot topic.

The videos had been removed at press time, but reports from some viewers on X suggest that one of the streams had been watched by more than 149,000 people at one point.

As in previous examples, the live streams included a QR code that, when scanned, directed users to a fake Tesla-branded website that held a $100 million raffle.

Fake website featuring Elon Musk and Donald Trump | Source: crypto.news

Users were also greeted by an automated chatbot that described the suspicious giveaway as an official event supported by Musk and Trump in an effort to “popularize cryptocurrency.”

A chatbot promoting scams on a fake website | Source: crypto.news

The site showed wallet addresses for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Dogecoin (DOGE), and promised to refund twice the amount of the cryptocurrency sent to those wallets. To make things look legitimate, a fake transaction history was also displayed, which was automatically updated to make it look like people were actually transferring their money.

A similar website was promoted through fake channels during Apple’s “Glowtime” event on September 9. Malicious actors used these fake channels to mimic the official event by pretending to be Apple and CEO Tim Cook.

At press time, the exact number of people affected by the scam remained unclear, but the attack is particularly concerning given the prominence of Allahbadia channels and the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies in India.

There is no official statement from Allahbadia regarding the incident yet.

The incident is the second attack on a prominent YouTube channel in India. The attack comes less than a week after the official YouTube channel of the Supreme Court of India was used to promote a scam and phishing links involving Ripple executives and the XRP token.