Justice Department Launches Probe On $370M FTX Hack
Justice Department Launches Probe On $370M FTX Hack.
A month after a massive $372 million worth of crypto was mysteriously stolen from the collapsed crypto exchange FTX, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly launched a criminal probe into the alleged hack.
DOJ’s Probe
According to a report by Bloomberg on Tuesday, a person “familiar with the case” reported that authorities were able to freeze a portion of the stolen assets and that investigators are working closely with Manhattan federal prosecutors in order to solve the case.
The report also notes that if caught, the hacker could be sentenced for a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Related: Sam Bankman-Fried In Talks With Writer Michael Lewis During House Arrest
FTX Hack
The hack and theft happened just hours after FTX filed for bankruptcy, with multiple FTX employees alerting the public on mysterious and unknown movement of massive amounts of funds from the platform. Not long after that, new FTX CEO John Jay Ray III officially confirming the hack on November 13th.
1/ Statement from John Ray, Chief Restructuring Officer and CEO of @FTX_Official — Consistent with their obligations as Chapter 11 Debtors-in-Possession, FTX US and FTX [dot] com continue to make every effort to secure all assets, wherever located.
— Ryne Miller (@_Ryne_Miller) November 12, 2022
Since then, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has suggested the possibility that the hacker could possibly be an insider, a former employee or someone who had access to a former FTX employee’s computer who then may have installed malware to steal funds from the platform.
SBF however explained in an interview that he was unable to figure out who the hacker was after losing access to FTX’s systems.
“I don’t know exactly who because they shut off access to the systems when I was halfway through exploring it,” SBF said, “I’ve narrowed it down to like eight people. I don’t know which one it was.”
Related: SBF Denies Backdoor Rumor: “I Don’t Even Know How To Code”
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