Hacker Arrested in France for $230 Million Cryptocurrency Theft

It took three years of investigation for the magistrates and investigators to succeed in apprehending a 24-year-old hacker, suspected of having hacked the South Korean cryptocurrency platform Coinrail in 2018 and stolen the equivalent of 210 million euros. His arrest took place last Tuesday at a French airport. The suspect was returning from a brief stay in Saint-Barthélemy and had been on the investigators’ radar for three years. The other clue that allowed the investigators to unmask him was the appearance of his name among other names in a similar case, this time targeting the GateHub platform.

After his arrest, this hacker, who lived in the south of France, was indicted for "organized theft, organized money laundering and attacks on an automated data processing system". Luxury items and several vehicles, including one estimated at 700,000 euros, and a luxury watch worth 80,000 euros, were found and seized during searches of his home. The investigators also proceeded to seize large sums of money from his bank account.

"On the day of the theft, 26 million euros had been stolen, but with the surge in the cryptocurrency price, we are now at a loss of 210 million euros," explains Johanna Brousse, deputy prosecutor and head of the cyber section of the Paris prosecutor’s office, in charge of the investigation. On Friday, the prosecution requested his placement in pre-trial detention.