American musician Garrett Dutton, known professionally as G. Love and the frontman of G. Love & Special Sauce, has lost approximately $420,000 in Bitcoin after downloading a fraudulent Ledger wallet application from Apple’s Mac App Store, which prompted him to enter his 24-word seed phrase.
Dutton publicly disclosed the theft on X on April 11, telling his 67,500 followers that it occurred while he was setting up his Ledger hardware wallet on a new Apple computer. The fake app mimicked the legitimate Ledger Live software, prompting him to enter his recovery phrase. Once he entered it, the attackers immediately drained his wallet.
A Decade of Savings Gone
“I had a really tough day today. I lost my retirement fund in a hack/scam when I switched my Ledger over to my new computer,” Dutton wrote. He said the stolen 5.9 BTC represented roughly ten years of careful accumulation intended for his retirement.
He added, “I’ve been in the crypto circus since 2017. Today they caught me off guard. It was my own damn fault for not being more diligent. But let it serve as a warning. There are so many scams.” Despite the devastating loss, Dutton indicated he would move forward and expressed gratitude for his health, family, and music career, noting a recent performance at Tortuga Fest.
Funds Traced to KuCoin
Onchain investigator ZachXBT confirmed the theft, tracing Dutton’s 5.92 BTC through nine separate transactions to deposit addresses linked to the KuCoin exchange. ZachXBT indicated he did not expect the exchange to intervene to recover the funds.
The large number of deposit addresses suggested the attackers may have routed funds through an instant exchange service to obscure the trail. At the time of writing, the fake Ledger app was no longer available on Apple’s App Store. Apple had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. No legal action has been publicly announced by Dutton.
A Recurring Threat
Fake Ledger apps have been a persistent attack vector in the crypto space. In 2023, nearly $600,000 in Bitcoin was stolen through a fraudulent Ledger Live application that appeared on Microsoft’s app store. Microsoft acknowledged the malicious app had bypassed its review process and removed it shortly after discovery.
The broader threat continues to grow. The FBI reported that Americans lost over $11 billion to crypto-related fraud in 2025, up from $9 billion the previous year.
In April 2026, U.S., U.K., and Canadian law enforcement disrupted a $45 million global crypto fraud operation that targeted victims with fake notifications mimicking legitimate applications. Ledger has consistently warned users to download its software only from ledger.com and never through third-party app stores.
