Thieves stole $8.5 million from the DeFi protocol, and the court set them free

Another shocking case related to fraud on the cryptocurrency market.

The two brothers who are directly responsible for stealing digital currencies worth a total of approximately $8.5 million from the DeFi protocol called Platypus will face absolutely no legal consequences. This is because the French court decided to release them.

Hackers responsible for grand theft are released from custody

Thanks to the beneficial assistance obtained from the Binance exchange security team, as well as additional independent cryptocurrency investigators, the stolen digital currency funds were efficiently traced. The result of these activities was the identification of two hackers who are directly responsible for the attack on Platypus. It is about Mohammed M. and his brother Benamar M.

Initially, both suspects were detained indefinitely for some time from February 24 this year, and then during the court hearing on October 26 this year, the brothers claimed to be some kind of ethical hackers, admitting to the daring theft and siphoning off funds from the said previously a financial platform. Cybercriminals additionally assured the court in Paris of their intention to fully refund the funds in exchange for only 10% of the loot.

Considering the similarity of this case to a "bug bounty" attempt, the hackers were cleared of all criminal charges. During the exploit, approximately €7.8 million worth of digital currencies became inaccessible after being "stuck" in the wallet.

More losses in the DeFi sector

In addition to the nefarious “incident” described above, the Platypus protocol also recently lost approximately $2.2 million in yet another exploit that took the form of a flash loan.

An independent investigation, which was carefully conducted by CertiK, a blockchain security company, revealed that the hack on October 12 this year was carried out in three parts. Their value is broken down as follows: $2.23 million, $575,000 thousand and $450,000 thousand in various digital currencies. On October 17 this year, the Platypus protocol managed to recover the aforementioned 90% of the stolen cryptocurrencies after reaching an agreement with the two hackers.