A trader known as @ika_xbt connected their wallet to what looked like Uniswap. It wasn’t. One authorized transaction later, at least $400K vanished, instantly and irreversibly drained from their portfolio through a fraudulent site served up by a Google ad.
The scam is painfully straightforward: buy a sponsored search result for “Uniswap,” clone the official interface down to the pixel, and wait for someone to connect their wallet. The victim in this case wasn’t a crypto novice. They were an experienced user who simply clicked the wrong link at the top of their search results.
How the scam works
Here’s the thing about Google ads: they sit above organic search results. For most people, that top link is the one they click without thinking. Scammers know this, which is why they’ve been purchasing sponsored placements for popular DeFi protocols for years.
The cloned sites use deceptive domains, sometimes hosted on seemingly legitimate infrastructure like sites.google.com, which gives them an added veneer of credibility. The user interface differences between the real Uniswap and the fake version are subtle enough to fool even seasoned traders.
