Apple’s tagline for its App Store says, “The apps you love. From a place you can trust.” You might love the apps, but can you trust the store? A federal lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California last week suggests not.
Three people have accused Apple of promoting a fake version of the Sparrow Wallet cryptocurrency app through its App Store, even though the real app’s developer had spent over a year telling Apple that he hadn’t produced a version for the mobile platform.
The fake app drained a combined $1.8 million from the victims’ wallets between May and August 2025, and now they’re furious with Apple for allowing it to happen.
How the scam worked
According to the legal complaint published courtesy of BleepingComputer, James Ramirez, Christopher Ellis, and Jalen Delgado downloaded a fake version of Sparrow Wallet from Apple’s App Store. It asked users to enter their recovery phrase (the 12 or 24 words that restore access to a crypto wallet), which is something a legitimate wallet app may also ask for during setup.
