Flexing how rich you are is dangerous not only for honest people but for criminals as well. In another case, a suspected crypto criminal was caught after flexing about their wallet with tens of millions worth of cryptoassets.
A prominent blockchain sleuth, ZachXBT, said he has once again managed to identify a suspected criminal who couldn't resist bragging about their crypto wallet.
"Meet the threat actor John (Lick), who was caught flexing $23M in a wallet address directly tied to $90M+ in suspected thefts from the US Government in 2024 and multiple other unidentified victims from Nov 2025 to Dec 2025m," the sleuth has introduced the suspect.
ZachXBT said he has managed to obtain a recording of a chat between John and another threat actor known as Dritan Kapplani Jr., as both suspects were arguing over who has more funds in their wallets while openly demonstrating their contents.
"John has an extensive message history on Telegram flaunting his networth and calling others broke," the investigation showed.
After John proved he controls $23 million worth of funds and left a trace of their origin, the blockchain security analyst found that the suspect received $24.9 million from a US Government address in March 2024. It was a theft from the US Government related to the Bitfinex hack seizure, ZachXBT reported in October 2024. Meanwhile, another wallet tied to John is said to be linked to more than $63 million in inflows from suspected victims and government seizure addresses in Q4 2025.
"Rumors circulating from cybercrime Telegram channels indicate John could be John Daghitia who was previously arrested in Sep 2025. Though more research is needed to fully confirm," the sleuth said, later adding that John (the one caught in the Telegram chat) removed all of the NFT (non-fungible token) usernames from his Telegram account and changed his screen name after the investigation was published.
What's more, John has "dusted" ZachXBT's public Ethereum (ETH) address from one of the theft addresses, meaning that a small amount of ETH was sent to the sleuth. In theory, it might have legal consequences as ZachXBT now has around $20 worth of stolen funds.
"Threat actors only continue to showing off stolen funds in leaked recordings rather than simply just staying quiet after an alleged theft from the US Government," the investigator concluded.
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