ZachXBT doesn’t operate in the shadows; he is the shadow. The self-taught, anonymous crypto investigator has spent the last three years tracking down scammers, hackers, and criminals in the industry.
From industry elites, to celebrities and influencers, no one’s too big for Zach to strike. No one knows his real name, where he lives, or even what he looks like. But crypto thieves definitely know his reputation. Zach’s journey as a blockchain investigator has been one for the books.
Andy Greenberg from WIRED recently highlighted his relentless pursuit of crypto scammers in a detailed profile and gave us a look into the sharp mind of the relentless investigator.
Armed with nothing but a sharp mind and a relentless drive to trace crypto’s darkest transactions, Zach has become the go-to guy for sniffing out fraud and stolen funds.
Tracing the crime scene
The profile opened with a tale from August 19. Zach was at the airport, ready to catch a flight, when an alert hit his phone. It was the kind of alert he lives for:- a transfer of $600,000 worth of Bitcoin to a small exchange.
Instantly, Zach knew something was off. This was way bigger than the typical transactions he sees on that exchange. By the time he reached the boarding gate, more pings hit his phone — another $1 million, then $2 million.
He knew this wasn’t a lucky day trader cashing out. This was theft, and Zach was already racing against the clock to figure out where this money was going. Before the plane’s Wi-Fi kicked in at 10,000 feet, he had traced the funds back to a Bitcoin wallet that had been untouched since 2012. Within hours, he identified that someone had stolen over $243 million from a single victim.
As soon as the plane’s Wi-Fi connected, Zach got back to work, mapping the stolen Bitcoin as it moved through various exchanges and coin-swapping services, a clear attempt to cover the tracks. This was classic crypto laundering.
The thieves were rapidly breaking up the funds across platforms, each with high fees that no smart investor would touch. Only one kind of person would pay those fees. Criminals in a hurry.
By the time his plane landed, Zach had already identified three main suspects and had alerted his 650,000 followers about the theft in real-time, as was reported by Cryptopolitan.
Despite the arrests he helped with, the case wasn’t entirely wrapped up. Authorities had managed to seize $79 million, but over $100 million was still unaccounted for. The third suspect, who Zach had also identified, remained at large.
Reports say that this person might have been connected to a violent carjacking and kidnapping in Connecticut, where the victim’s parents were targeted because their son was believed to control significant crypto assets.
The breakthrough
Even though most of the money was unaccounted for (over $100 million is still missing) Zach didn’t rest. He continued chasing down leads, working with law enforcement to recover more funds.
Meanwhile, the third suspect, who hadn’t been arrested yet, stayed off the radar, though evidence pointed to his connection with a kidnapping case in Connecticut. The suspects had allegedly targeted the parents of a wealthy crypto investor, believing the victim’s son had access to substantial digital currency.
Since Zach started his journey as an on-chain sleuth in 2021, he’s traced billions of dollars in stolen funds, helped recover $210 million in crypto, and exposed scams that most law enforcement agencies wouldn’t touch until it’s too late.
The numbers speak for themselves, and Zach has become something of the ultimate crypto vigilante. He operates almost entirely off donations, which come in the form of grants and crypto contributions from strangers who support his work.
So far, the detective claims he has received around $1.3 million in crypto donations. “His success is completely tied to the success of his investigations,” says Joe McGill, an analyst at the Secret Service who has worked closely with Zach on multiple cases.
McGill isn’t the only one impressed by Zach’s results. Nick Bax, a founder of the crypto investigation firm Five I’s, half-jokingly wonders if Zach is a machine. Zach’s ability to tear through hundreds of transactions in a matter of hours is beyond impressive.
Bax says he recalls giving Zach a list of 500 transactions to manually analyze one Saturday night. By the next afternoon, Zach had connected the dots, completing a task that would take others days or weeks.
Bringing down the big players
By the time 2022 rolled around, Zach had already made a name for himself in the crypto underworld, but his most high-profile busts were yet to come.
One case that put Zach squarely on the radar of law enforcement was his investigation into the $2.5 million worth of NFTs stolen through a phishing attack. This time, the thieves weren’t anonymous teenagers, but a pair of French hackers.
Zach’s meticulous blockchain tracing led French prosecutors to arrest five suspects in connection with the theft. His work snowballed, with each investigation leading to bigger cases and more money on the line.
Last year, Zach tracked down $9 million stolen from the crypto project Platypus. In just a matter of hours, he had identified the suspects. Two people were arrested within a week, and while charges were later dropped, several million dollars were recovered.
That same year, he traced $25 million stolen from Uranium Finance. The thieves behind this heist had laundered the money in a creative way, purchasing rare Magic: The Gathering cards.
He said, “To see law enforcement acting on something I’d shared, that was very fulfilling. It made me think maybe I was actually onto something with what I’d been doing.”
The North Korean connection
One of Zach’s biggest investigations yet came in 2023 when he exposed a network of North Korean hackers (Lazarus Group) responsible for stealing over $200 million in crypto. Zach discovered the group had carried out at least 25 hacks, many of which had never been publicly reported.
He also exposed a sophisticated operation where North Korean IT workers were infiltrating tech companies and getting paid in crypto. These workers were quietly siphoning funds back to the regime.
In one case, a hacker managed to get hired at the NFT firm Munchables, only to steal $62 million in crypto from the company. The hacker returned the money, unable to launder it without attracting attention, thanks to Zach’s persistent digging.
Zach’s work with law enforcement continued to expand. By mid-2023, he had helped freeze $7 million connected to the North Korean hackers.
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