The US Attorney's Office has filed charges against three people in the $400 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which took place in 2022 shortly after the company filed for bankruptcy.
In a complaint filed on January 24, 2024, in US District Court in Washington, DC, U.S. federal prosecutors charged Robert Powell, Carter Ron, and Emily Hernandez. The documents filed detail an attack on "Victim Company-1" using SIM swapping between November 11 and 12, 2022.
According to the document, Hernandez allegedly posed as an employee of the company, and Powell fraudulently gained access to data from AT&T, a wireless carrier that provided services to the company. Access to the accounts allowed the attackers to steal more than $400 million in digital assets from crypto wallets.
"A SIM swapping attack is the process of fraudulently inducing a telecommunications carrier to reassign a mobile phone number from a legitimate subscriber or user's SIM card to a SIM card controlled by a criminal," the indictment states.
Analyst firm Elliptic suggested that FTX was a "Victim Company-1" because several unauthorized transactions totaling approximately $400 million were made in FTX's crypto wallets within hours of the indictment.
Powell, Ron, and Hernandez have been charged with conspiracy to commit electronic communication and identity theft, the Cointelegraph reported.
Some of the funds were sent to the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, according to security director Nick Percoco. The attackers moved the funds through various bridges and blockchains several times in an attempt to "launder" the stolen funds.
The bankrupt FTX exchange has promised a full refund to clients, but many have doubts about this, as the company itself has stated that there are no funds to restart the platform, nor are there any buyers.
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