US charges crypto hacker with stealing $65 million: case details
Date: 2025-02-05 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
In November 2023, Medjedovich used vulnerabilities in the KyberSwap decentralized exchange system to manipulate prices and steal funds from liquidity pools. The amount of stolen funds amounted to about $65 million, which attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies. Medjedovich used borrowed cryptocurrency worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which allowed him to influence asset prices and successfully carry out the attack.
After Medjedovich extracted the cryptocurrency from the platform, he attempted to extort money from the KyberSwap developers. In his message, the hacker offered to start negotiations with the project team in a few hours after he had rested. He contacted them via an Ethereum blockchain explorer and sent a minimal amount to the developers’ public wallet address, along with a threatening text message. The hacker offered to return some of the funds in exchange for demands that included full control over the Kyber project and internal documentation.
Medjedovich offered the KyberSwap team to return 90% of the stolen funds, keeping 10% for himself, but his demands went further. He requested full control over the company’s assets and rights, and promised to compensate liquidity providers. In total, he stole about $48.8 million from 77 liquidity pools on the platform, involving six blockchains. Moreover, he was already associated with another major hack in 2021, when he stole $16.5 million from Indexed Finance.
After the theft, Medjedovich tried to launder the funds through crypto mixers and blockchain bridges. However, his plans were partially thwarted when one of the bridges blocked the transactions. In return, he paid an undercover agent about $80,000 to help him bypass the blocking and withdraw $500,000 in stolen funds.
Documents showed that Medjedovich carefully planned his attack on KyberSwap, writing down the details of the operation and planning the timing of the hack — mainly to attack when most users were asleep. He also noted that after the crime, he needed to destroy all evidence and go into hiding.
If convicted, Medjedovich faces up to 10 years in prison for the hacking and up to 20 years on each of the other charges.
