Holograph crypto heist perpetrators arrested in Italy

The suspected hackers that orchestrated the cryptocurrency heist against Holograph were arrested and detained by the authorities in Italy. These hackers have successfully stolen about $14 million worth of cryptocurrency funds on the blockchain tech startup.

Polizia di Stato, Italy’s national police department, reported earlier this week that four people accused of cybercrime and money laundering lived lavishly in a beautiful villa in Salerno.

 

Holograph is one of the cryptocurrency exchange platforms that allows cross-chain interoperability.

 

Holograph is a cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 platform based in the Cayman Islands. It is one of the few crypto platforms that enables cross-chain interoperability.

However, a couple of months ago, the platform revealed that a group of unauthorised individuals used a smart contract weakness to arbitrarily generate 1 billion HLG, Holograph’s token, and remove the funds in nine transactions.

These compromised tokens were worth $14 million then, but their value dropped by more than 80% within hours of the incident. In addition, this affected crypto exchange entity previously revealed that the hack was executed by a former technical contractor and developer who had inside knowledge of its protocol’s operation, making the attack more efficient.

This incident prompted the authorities to investigate, collaborating with law enforcement and the French National Police. This team followed the group of alleged hackers for several weeks, watching their wealthy lifestyle in Italy.

This monitoring resulted in two of the four alleged suspects being arrested after a European arrest order was released. The two men are now being detained in Salerno prison awaiting extradition to France, while the other two are still under surveillance but are currently free.

The police also seized cryptocurrency wallet private keys, ledger keys, codes, and electronic devices in the cybercriminals’ possession. Additionally, the authorities will analyse the confiscated items and make them as evidence to aid investigations.

Presumably, the remaining stolen cash will be returned to Holograph now that the authorities have access to the cryptocurrency wallets containing the earnings.

This recent development about the event and the arrest of the perpetrators has allowed the HLG value to rise by 28.3% in the last couple of days and 59.4% in the past week. However, its current value remains significantly lower than its initial price before the June heist.