France arrests suspects in $9 million cryptoprotocol hack
Two suspects in the $9 million Platypus crypto hack were arrested in France
Police seized cryptocurrency worth about €210 thousand from the detainees.
In France, two suspects in the hacking of the cryptoprotocol Platypus worth about $ 9 million were arrested, the project team said while thanking the exchange Binance and on-chain detective ZachXBT, through which they were able to identify and track the attackers.
Platypus is an automated market maker (AMM) focused on stablecoins and running on the Avalanche blockchain. On February 16, the project was hacked and $9.19 million was withdrawn from the platform. Platypus said that with the cooperation of other blockchain projects and stablecoin issuers, it was able to recover 2.4 million USDC and 687 thousand BUSD, and also asked Tether to freeze 1.5 million USDT.
According to the developers, ZachXBT analyzed the activity of attackers in the network, tracing the chain of transactions. The identity of the hackers was established because they submitted a request to withdraw USDT using a Binance account. The developers and the exchange contacted the French law enforcement authorities, and they launched an investigation. After the arrest of two suspects, the French police reported that they seized about €210 thousand worth of cryptocurrency.
As of 3 p.m. Feb. 27, it was trading at $0.33, according to CoinGecko.
Late last year, Mango Market's hacker Abraham Eisenberg was arrested in Puerto Rico. Although he had previously reached a $67 million settlement with Mango and no prosecution, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged him with fraud, price manipulation and attempting to steal about $110 million in cryptocurrency.
