Crypto fraud · Shiba Inu
Fake video calls, real crypto haul – the Shiba Inu never answers unknown callers
Der Hündeler, Edition of Friday, 13 November 2026
What happened
North Korean hackers used fake video calls to steal $400m in cryptocurrency, according to the FBI. The scheme is known as FaceStealer. More than 900 victims are thought to have fallen prey to it over the last 18 months.
What does this mean for your Shiba Inu?
The Shiba Inu lent its name to a cryptocurrency and its face to the internet, yet holds no coins of its own. It would nonetheless be a tiresome target for any hacker: it greets strangers with polite indifference, however warmly they smile into a camera. Bred to hunt in the dense undergrowth of Japan’s mountains, it trusts its nose rather than whatever happens to be moving in front of it. A face that cannot be smelt is not, in its view, a face worth talking to. Pressed any further, it produces the famous Shiba scream, which in a block of flats passes for a burglar alarm.
What you can do now: If a video call ends in a request for money, hang up and ring back on a number you already know. Your Shiba Inu left the call some time ago.