From CryptoPotato · By Chayanika Deka
ZachXBT has identified French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa as the alleged EU financial institution behind a crypto theft of more than $133 million.
In his latest update, the blockchain investigator said the bank, which reportedly holds over $235 billion in assets, was targeted over multiple days.
Investigation Expands
The disclosure follows his earlier investigation into suspicious withdrawals from multiple centralized exchange accounts, which was initially estimated at around $106 million. The stolen funds were reportedly withdrawn in USDC and USDT before being moved through a series of transactions involving ETH swaps, instant exchanges, privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero (XMR), and cross-chain bridges.
ZachXBT also suspects the actual amount stolen could be higher once over-the-counter (OTC) activity is taken into account. The identity of the attacker remains unknown. The investigator has also stated that the available laundering indicators point away from the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group.
Meanwhile, Bitquery’s blockchain analysis traced $108.8 million in USDC withdrawals from Kraken, Crypto.com and OKX to 15 wallets over a 21-hour period on November 1 and 2. Interestingly, 11 of these addresses had previously received funds from the same exchanges, which suggested they may have been trusted withdrawal addresses associated with the affected accounts.
Funds across 332 wallets were subsequently tracked, and Bitquery found that much of the USDC had been converted into ETH. As of 13:27 UTC on November 3, approximately $61 million remained on Ethereum in addresses linked to the illicit actor. The analysis also identified $28 million transferred to four addresses missing from the initial list of 11.
On the recovery front, Tether had frozen approximately $1.14 million in USDT by November 2, while Circle had not frozen any of the remaining $2.53 million in USDC. Separately, Bitquery flagged a transfer of 396 ETH to a Kraken deposit address on November 3.
Crypto Theft Spree
The alleged breach comes in the wake of other major crypto thefts, including incidents involving BTCPay Server and Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin. It also follows the $6.3 billion Binance hack, the largest cryptocurrency theft reported to date.
As for Mercado Bitcoin, the Brazilian exchange suffered a major security breach, resulting in the loss of almost $40 million. It assured customers that their funds would remain unaffected. This incident may be connected to yet another exchange breach, as BitMart’s initial findings point to a possible link between the two attacks. BitMart founder Sheldon Xia confirmed that the exchange was hacked on November 2, but described the amount stolen as small.
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