- Amount Lost: $181,000,000.00
- Funds Returned: $0.00
- Category: CeFi
- Date: 2017-7-26
Quick Summary
The popular Russian bitcoin exchange BTC-e suddenly stopped working. On Twitter, it was written that the exchange is under "server maintenance".
Details of the Exploit
BTC-E is now a closed online trading platform for fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies in real time, focused primarily on Russian—speaking users.
Compliance-as-a-service company Coinfirm discussed the BTC-e situation and the 66,000 Bitcoins moved.
According to Pawel Kuskowski, CEO & Co-Founder at Coinfirm, right after the arrest of Alexander Vinnik, broadly referred to as the mastermind behind BTC-e, over 66,000 BTC were moved from 18f1yugoAJuXcHAbsuRVLQC9TezJ6iVRLp across the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Founded in 2011, BTC-e was one of the world's largest and most widely used digital currency exchanges. Cybercriminals around the world used it to launder and liquidate illegally obtained digital currencies, according to the U.S. indictment.
The exchange had no anti-money laundering controls or policies and was found to have received criminal proceeds of ransomware attacks, identity theft schemes, computer breaches and other hacking incidents, as well as corrupt public officials and narcotics distribution rings, according to the indictment. Between 2011 and December 2016, bitcoin addresses and digital wallets associated with BTC-e received over 9.4 million bitcoins, according to the federal indictment.
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