Nazia Saeed
The Instagram account of the former rap trio Migos was hijacked on May 27 in what appears to be a blackmail attempt aimed at Solana co-founder Raj Gokal.
The hacked account posted at least seven images before deleting them; these included two that appeared to show Gokal holding his passport and driver’s license, with all personal details clearly visible, a Coin Telegraph report stated. The hacker tagged Gokal in one of the posts, accompanied by the caption: “you should’ve paid the 40 btc.” Another post read: “it was only 40 btc should’ve paid,” hinting at a failed extortion attempt demanding 40 Bitcoin.
In another image, the hacker claimed to show Gokal’s wife holding up a driver’s license. Additional images appeared to contain a trove of private data, such as phone numbers and email addresses.
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The format of the photos—featuring individuals holding up ID documents with their faces visible—is similar to Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures used by crypto exchanges. However, the origin of these images and how they were obtained remains unknown.
On May 20, Gokal had already warned his followers on X (formerly Twitter) that unknown attackers had been attempting to take over his email and social media accounts. He urged caution around any suspicious posts.
It remains unclear whether the images involved artificial intelligence, but deepfake technology has increasingly been linked to extortion schemes in the crypto world. In April, crypto podcaster Scott Melker revealed that scammers used a fake version of his ID to defraud at least one victim of over $4 million.
KYC data security has also drawn scrutiny. Earlier this month, Coinbase faced a lawsuit alleging it violated biometric privacy laws by failing to disclose its use of third-party vendors for customer ID verification.
