Ex Malaysian PM’s Account Hacked to Promote Fake Meme Coin

Anonymous hackers took over the X account of the former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to promote a fake meme coin. Hackers are leveraging the hype around US President Donald Trump’s meme coin for wider rug pulls.

This incident is one of several meme coin scams using a political veneer. The former President of Brazil was targeted in a similar attack last month, but these hackers are probably affiliated with the infamous Russian Evil Corp.

MALAYSIA: The Latest Fake Meme Coin

Social media scams are growing in the crypto space, and it’s hard to tell how to prevent them. In a particularly egregious example, hackers used a former Malaysian prime Minister to shill a meme coin.

Mahathir Mohamad was the country’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and his social media accounts began endorsing MALAYSIA:

“Malaysia’s Official Cryptocurrency MALAYSIA is Now Live on Solana! This marks a significant milestone in showcasing the strength of our people and out nation’s presence in the digital economy. It is an honor for us to demonstrate Malaysia’s power on the global crypto network,” the fraudulent social media post claimed.

The post was removed within an hour, but the damage was done. Analysis shows that these hackers were probably related to the infamous Evil Corp, and that they managed to steal $1.7 million in this rug pull.

According to data from GeckoTreminal, the token’s market cap jumped to $1.7 million in just 15 minutes after the fake tweet and quickly collapsed. The hackers were able to liquidate this amount in less than an hour.

This MALAYSIA scam is just one component of a rising trend of fake political meme coins. Since scammers used the TRUMP token to steal $857 million, it’s been open season.

A former Brazilian President was hacked to shill one fake token, and another claimed to represent the US Treasury. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin officially raised the alarm about this trend.

However, these scams aren’t just limited to political topics. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT claimed that Coinbase users lost at least $150 million to scammers, and Scam Sniffer reported a 2000% increase in Telegram-based phishing attacks since November.

Ultimately, it doesn’t look like these scams are going anywhere anytime soon. Analysts have speculated that the rise of meme coins has destroyed altcoin season by redirecting capital investment and community interest to this sector.

If meme coins have this much power, fake tokens will continue receiving speculative investments.