New Delhi, 10 Aug: Cryptocurrencies worth nearly ₹ 2,000 crore, or $230 million, were stolen from a wallet linked to the WazirX exchange last month in India in what has been described as the biggest such theft in the crypto world so far.
As thousands of people lost crores, WazirX reported the incident to the central cybercrime portal, Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team. A police case was also registered in Delhi, NDTV said.
Pelorus Technology and Crystal Intelligence, digital forensics firms that help in probing major cyber and crypto irregularities, help us understand how the theft of this scale was executed from wallets that are secured with multi-level authentication.
Crystal Intelligence, a blockchain intelligence firm, uses a security tool to monitor crypto money trails on the blockchain in real-time.
Wazir X had provided the wallet identity that was compromised in a statement. When cyber investigators across the globe used the Crystal tool to examine the money trail, it showed about 200 transactions from the recipient’s wallets on July 18.
The probe also revealed the plan had been in the making since July 10.
“When we started investigating, we saw a parallel story. First, the wallet was compromised and from there, the thief transferred 230 million dollars to his wallet. This was in different cryptocurrencies. At the same time, when we saw its back trail, a transaction was seen funding that wallet from Tornado Cash for a few days. The dates show he (thief) had been preparing from July 10,” said Sanjeev Shahi, Country Manager, Crystal Intelligence.
The same day the cryptos were stolen, they were converted into other cryptocurrencies and transferred in smaller amounts to multiple wallets linked to two different exchanges. As many as 2,000 transactions were made.
Between July 18 and 22, the biggest chunk – as much as 95% – was parked in three such wallets that do not appear to be linked to any exchange currently.
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