The damage is estimated at $9.5 million in cryptocurrencies. Two Frenchmen suspected of having hacked an American platform of decentralized finance, Platypus, were arrested Wednesday in Ile-de-France, announced Saturday the investigating police service. It is on a report of the platform of exchange of currencies Binance that the investigators of the Central Office for the fight against crime related to information and communication technologies (OCLCTIC) were warned Friday, February 17 of a possible scam carried out since the France targeting the American company Platypus.

The two men, brothers aged 18 and 20, were arrested on Wednesday. The eldest is suspected of having carried out the scam and his brother of having benefited in part from the stolen money. At their home, 210,000 euros in cryptocurrency were seized. They were brought to court on Thursday.

At the end of their police custody, they were presented to the prosecutor and will be summoned before the criminal court, said the Paris prosecutor's office, without specifying the date. They were placed under judicial control, he added. One is prosecuted for fraudulent access and maintenance in an automated data processing system, fraud and money laundering, the second for concealment of fraud, said the prosecutor.

Flash loan scam

On February 16, hackers relied on "flash loans", instant loans in cryptocurrencies without guarantee but repayable a few seconds later, detailed Christophe Durand, deputy head of the investigation office. They first took out a $44 million loan from a pool of cryptocurrency investors. Then, a second loan of $ 41 million from Platypus, with the first loan as collateral.

Then they used the "emergency exit" option of this loan to withdraw the equivalent of $8.5 million, then about $9 million, the commissioner explained. In total, the damage to Platypus was estimated at $5.270 million in cryptocurrency. But as a result of mistakes on their part, the hackers were only able to get their hands on the equivalent of 000,60 euros. They spent about 000,<> euros.

Serious consequences

For the American company, the hackers' operation was fraught with consequences, since once the hack was known, its cryptocurrency "USP" collapsed by "half its value", explained Commissioner Durand.


While in custody, the elder of the two brothers tried to explain, according to the commissioner, that he was a "white hat" hacker (an ethical hacker who defends citizens and companies) and that he had wanted to negotiate remuneration with the American company for the discovery of a flaw in their verification system. In the end, of the $ 9.5 million stolen, seven million are blocked in the virtual universe of cryptocurrencies and are "out of reach of everyone" and 2.5 million were recovered by Platypus.

Christophe Durand insisted on the speed with which the hackers had been identified and arrested and this thanks to "the work of the engineers who assisted the investigators" to trace the movements of cryptocurrencies in the world of finance 2.0.

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