On May 15, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against two brothers, Anton and James Peraire-Bueno, for orchestrating a scheme that stole $25 million in crypto by exploiting the Ethereum blockchain.
The DOJ has charged them with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
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The brothers allegedly manipulated and tampered with the Ethereum blockchain's transaction validation process.
They gained unauthorized access to pending private transactions, altered them, and stole crypto from their victims. Once the crypto was stolen, they rejected requests to return the funds and took various measures to conceal their illegal gains.
US Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York emphasized that the authorities are committed to holding such criminals accountable:
This alleged scheme was novel, and has never before been charged. But as the indictment makes clear, no matter how sophisticated the fraud or how new the techniques used to accomplish it, the career prosecutors of this office will be relentless in pursuing people who attack the integrity of all financial systems.
If convicted, Anton and James Peraire-Bueno each face up to 20 years in prison per count.
As the industry continues to grow, ensuring the integrity and security of blockchain protocols remains paramount to preventing similar incidents in the future.
In other related news, a core contributor at Cypher Protocol has recently confessed to stealing and gambling away over $300,000 from Cypher's redemption contract.
