US Prosecutors Charge Canadian Hacker in $65M Crypto Heist

U.S. authorities have charged 22-year-old Canadian Andean Medjedovic for allegedly stealing roughly $65 million from two decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, Listed Finance and KyberSwap.

The U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) introduced on February 3 {that a} federal court docket had unsealed a five-count indictment in opposition to him.

The Prices Towards Medjedovic

Based on court docket documents, Medjedovic manipulated sensible contracts on the 2 platforms between 2021 and 2023, tricking the protocols into miscalculating key monetary variables. This allowed him to withdraw funds at synthetic costs, inflicting important investor losses.

Prosecutors say he laundered the stolen cash via digital asset swaps, bridging transactions, and crypto mixers in an try to cover the illicit proceeds.

U.S. Legal professional John J. Durham described the alleged crimes as a “extremely subtle scheme to use two decentralized finance protocols and steal tens of tens of millions of {dollars}’ value of cryptocurrency from traders.”

Authorities additional allege that after the KyberSwap exploit, the accused sought to extort the protocol’s builders and traders, demanding full management of the platform and its DAO in change for returning half of the stolen belongings.

Medjedovic is charged with wire fraud, unauthorized harm to a protected pc, tried extortion below the Hobbs Act, and two counts of cash laundering. If convicted, he may obtain a most sentence of 10 years for the pc harm cost and as much as 20 years for the opposite 4 counts.

The Suspect’s Path

The Canadian has been on the run since stealing from Listed Finance in 2021. He has defended his actions on-line by claiming they had been authorized below the disapproved “code-is-law” argument, which means that exploiting flaws in sensible contracts is truthful recreation.

In a 2023 interview with DL Information, Medjedovic acknowledged he had traveled via Europe and Latin America, finally deciding on an undisclosed island. Whereas he dodged questions concerning the exploit, he insisted he had turned to moral hacking as a “extra sustainable mode of being.”

Months later, KyberSwap was drained of roughly $50 million in crypto. Blockchain investigators linked the incident to a pockets related to the 22-year-old that later transferred $2 million to a separate one additionally tied to him.

After the exploit, prosecutors say he tried to maneuver stolen crypto to Ethereum however was blocked by builders. Annoyed, he allegedly contacted help to demand they course of the transaction.

Laurence Day, a co-founder of Listed Finance, believes the suspect’s arrest will carry little reduction to victims. He famous that a lot of the stolen crypto was later taken in a separate hack, complicating restoration efforts.