- Shakeeb Ahmed was arrested by the DOJ for stealing $9 million worth of cryptocurrency from a decentralized exchange (DEX) through a flash loan.
- The theft occurred in July 2022 and involved the use of the flash loan method.
- Ahmed attempted to launder the stolen assets by converting them to Monero (XMR) and sending them to different cryptocurrency exchanges.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced the arrest of Shakeeb Ahmed, who was involved in a $9 million cryptocurrency theft from an undisclosed decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Solana network. According to the DOJ, Ahmed was arrested on July 11. The attack took place in July 2022 and was carried out using the flash loan method.
Although the DOJ did not disclose the specific DEX where the attack occurred, the information provided aligns with the Cream Finance attack that took place in July 2022. During that incident, the attackers managed to steal 69,422 SOL and 6,497,000 USDC from Cream Finance. They later returned the stolen cryptocurrency, worth a total of $7.6 million, and received a reward of 45,455 SOL.
The DOJ press release provided the following details:
Ahmed exploited a security vulnerability in one of the smart contracts of a cryptocurrency exchange in July 2022 and carried out an attack worth approximately $9 million using the flash loan technique, adding fake pricing data and transferring the cryptocurrencies to his own account.
In addition, the DOJ stated that Ahmed conducted more than 21 flash loan attacks and attempted to launder the $9 million worth of assets by converting them to Monero (XMR) and sending them to various cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to LinkedIn records, Ahmed was allegedly employed as a senior cybersecurity engineer at Amazon. However, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed that Ahmed is no longer employed by the company.
