{"id":778,"date":"2024-05-16T23:09:55","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T23:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/brothers-charged-for-stealing-25-million-in-cryptocurrency-justia-news-may-16-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-05-19T16:36:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T16:36:42","slug":"brothers-charged-for-stealing-25-million-in-cryptocurrency-justia-news-may-16-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/brothers-charged-for-stealing-25-million-in-cryptocurrency-justia-news-may-16-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Brothers Charged for Stealing $25 Million in Cryptocurrency \u2014 Justia News \u2014 May 16, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Federal prosecutors on Wednesday arrested two brothers, who had both studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on charges that they stole $25 million worth of cryptocurrency on Ethereum\u2019s blockchain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anton Peraire-Bueno, 24, and James Peraire-Bueno, 28, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering arising from allegations that they schemed to exploit a weakness in the Ethereum blockchain to steal $25 million worth of cryptocurrency in about 12 seconds. They are alleged to have used the skills they learned by studying computer science and mathematics at MIT to fraudulently access pending transactions on the Ethereum blockchain and manipulate the movement of the cryptocurrency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The heist, which took place in April 2023, involved months of planning. The brothers allegedly studied the trading behaviors of the traders whose cryptocurrency they stole, set up shell companies to hide the funds, and transferred the funds through multiple transactions to hide their ownership. They also conducted online searches for things like how to steal cryptocurrency, how to hide their involvement in the fraud, cryptocurrency exchanges with limited \u201cknow your customer\u201d procedures, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatrustedlawyers.com\/foreclosure-lawyers.html\">lawyers<\/a> who were experts in cryptocurrency cases, extradition procedures, and the crimes of wire fraud and money laundering.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain used for more than one million transactions on average per day. It is run as a decentralized network using \u201csmart contracts,\u201d which are self-executing computer protocols that facilitate transactions involving digital currency without a trusted intermediary. Transactions are recorded on a public ledger, or a \u201cblockchain.\u201d However, before transactions are added to the Ethereum blockchain, they are validated by \u201cvalidators\u201d who are randomly selected after depositing a certain amount of Ethereum cryptocurrency in a smart contract. Transactions await validation in a \u201cmemory pool.\u201d After a transaction is posted to the blockchain, it cannot be altered or deleted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anton and James are alleged to have exploited a vulnerability in an open-source software, \u201cMEV-Boost,\u201d used to optimize the blockchain-building process for Ethereum validators, allowing them to tamper with Ethereum transactions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The brothers also allegedly rejected requests to return the stolen funds and took steps to conceal their fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the Department of Justice, this fraud is the first of its kind. If convicted, the brothers face up to 20 years in prison for each count.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Additional Reading<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/two-brothers-arrested-attacking-ethereum-blockchain-and-stealing-25m-cryptocurrency\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two Brothers Arrested for Attacking Ethereum Blockchain and Stealing $25M in Cryptocurrency<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">U.S. Department of Justice<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (May 15, 2024)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/legal\/us-charges-two-brothers-with-novel-25-million-cryptocurrency-heist-2024-05-15\/?utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=Newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=Daily-Docket&amp;utm_term=051624&amp;user_email=6d85d002f60706b10666a07924a068f8199be31799543163b6b8022905b74bdc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">US charges two brothers with novel $25 million cryptocurrency heist<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reuters<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (May 15, 2024)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Image Credit: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TippaPatt \/ Shutterstock.com<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d, s, id) {<br \/>\n            var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];<br \/>\n            if (d.getElementById(id)) return;<br \/>\n            js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;<br \/>\n            js.src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11&appId=1639788792774312&autoLogAppEvents=1\";<br \/>\n            fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);<br \/>\n        }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal prosecutors on Wednesday arrested two brothers, who had both studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on charges that they stole $25 million worth of cryptocurrency on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1156,1157,1160,309,1159,310,1158],"class_list":["post-778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-brothers","tag-charged","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-justia","tag-million","tag-news","tag-stealing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778\/revisions\/851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}