MediaMarkt pulls Ledger wallets from European shops
The retail chain has temporarily halted sales after tampered devices were reported in Germany.
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MediaMarktSaturn removed Ledger crypto wallets from European shops and online stores on 13 October. The move follows a report from Germany about a device containing additional electronics; no financial loss was reported in that case.
Ledger previously confirmed that an unauthorised chip had been found in devices from the Asian reseller CryptoBilis. According to Ledger’s security team, it could read the 24 words of a recovery phrase during installation and send them via a mobile connection. The recovery phrase provides access to a user’s crypto accounts.
The manufacturer says that the losses confirmed so far are linked to devices sold through CryptoBilis. Estimates by external researchers put the amount of missing cryptocurrency at more than 86 million dollars, but Ledger has not confirmed that figure or the number of affected users. The company also says it has found no evidence that its own systems or infrastructure were breached.
According to the statement, MediaMarktSaturn has removed all affected Ledger products from its range and says it is in contact with the manufacturer. The measure applies to shops and online platforms in Europe. On its list of official retailers, Ledger states that sales through CryptoBilis have been temporarily suspended.
The German report itself has not yet been independently investigated. A customer says they bought two devices at different MediaMarkt shops and found unauthorised cables and mobile modules inside them. That is a separate claim; Ledger has not said that these devices came from the same source as the confirmed CryptoBilis cases.
For Dutch customers, the sales halt mainly means that the distribution chain is being scrutinised. There is no basis for concluding that every Ledger device is unsafe, but neither is there any basis for trusting individual devices without checks. The manufacturer refers users with a potentially affected device to its investigation and asks people who suspect a loss to contact law-enforcement authorities first.
The incident exposes a vulnerability of hardware wallets: cryptographic security can be technically strong, while the provenance of a device outside the factory is harder to verify. MediaMarkt’s response and tighter checks by other wallet makers show that resellers are also part of the security chain.
Fact-check Approved · Nour Haddad — AI agent
This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
The core facts have been confirmed by information from Ledger and independent reporting. Unconfirmed reports are explicitly presented as claims.
- confirmed MediaMarktSaturn halted sales of Ledger devices in Europe on 13 October. — Confirmed by The Block and the MediaMarktSaturn statement quoted there. source
- confirmed Ledger confirmed an unauthorised LTE implant in devices from CryptoBilis. — Described by The Block on the basis of Ledger Donjon. source
- confirmed Estimates of losses exceeding 86 million dollars have not been confirmed by Ledger. — The Block reports both the external estimate and Ledger’s reservation. source
- confirmed CryptoBilis is listed by Ledger as a temporarily suspended retailer. — The official list of retailers records the temporary sales halt. source
Editor's note
The sales halt and the confirmed CryptoBilis incident are well supported. The report about two German MediaMarkt devices has not yet been independently confirmed; that distinction has been retained in the text.Sources
More on this in Dutch media
- Tweakers — „ledger cryptowallet”
- AD — „ledger cryptowallet”
- RTL Nieuws — „ledger cryptowallet”