Defendant in the first smart contract hacking case in US history has pleaded guilty

Former cybersecurity engineer Shakeeb Ahmed also agreed to return $12,3 million

15.12.2023 - 10:27

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Last updated on Dec 15, 2023

What’s new? In the United States, a hacker of two decentralized exchanges (DEX) has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $12,3 million. Both incidents occurred in July last year. The first, for which the defendant was arrested a year later, was also the subject of the country’s first-ever criminal case for smart contract hacking. The affected exchange in that case is not named, but circumstantial evidence suggests it was Crema Finance on the Solana network. The second case was an attack on the Solana-based Nirvana Finance protocol, which is openly listed in the Department of Justice’s press release.

Statement of the prosecutor’s office

What else is known? The hacker is 34-year-old Shakeeb Ahmed, a US citizen who was formerly a chief cybersecurity engineer at an unnamed international company. Authorities indicate that after conducting the attacks, he exchanged stolen digital assets for the anonymous cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) and used mixers and overseas exchanges to hide the source of the funds.

The attack on the first exchange, the name of which is not disclosed by the DOJ, brought Ahmed $9 million. It is noted that in the course of negotiations, the hacker agreed to return $7,5 million if the platform’s team would not turn to law enforcement.

Three weeks later, Ahmed withdrew $3,6 million from Nirvana Finance DeFi protocol. The parties also negotiated, but the negotiations were inconclusive: the project offered a $600 000 reward, while the hacker asked for $1,4 million. As a result, he kept all the funds for himself, and the project closed down soon after, as it did not have additional funds.

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The hackers who stole $8,5 million from the project have been cleared of all charges

The maximum punishment for Ahmed could be a five-year prison sentence. The sentence will be announced on March 13 next year.

Earlier, the US Internal Revenue Service compiled its own top 10 of the most high-profile investigations of the year, four of which are related to cryptocurrencies.

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