Key takeaways:
- Due to their manipulation of Ethereum blockchain transactions for their personal gain, two brothers are facing wire fraud charges.
- Maintaining the security and integrity of blockchain protocols is essential to averting future occurrences of this kind of thing as the industry expands.
Due to their manipulation of Ethereum blockchain transactions for their personal gain, two brothers are facing wire fraud charges.
The two brothers, Anton and James Peraire-Bueno were charged on May 15 by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for masterminding a conspiracy to steal $25 million in cryptocurrency by taking advantage of the Ethereum network.
The brothers are accused of manipulating and tampering with the transaction validation process of the Ethereum blockchain. They stole cryptocurrency from their victims and acquired unauthorized access to pending private transactions. After the cryptocurrency was taken, they disregarded pleas to give the money back and used a variety of tactics to hide their illicit profits.
Maintaining the security and integrity of blockchain protocols is essential to averting future occurrences of this kind of thing as the industry expands.
The authorities are dedicated to holding these perpetrators accountable, according to US Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York:
“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.”
James Peraire-Bueno and Anton could spend up to 20 years in jail for each count if found guilty.
Open-source software developers may face significant consequences following the conviction of Tornado Cash’s founder, the creator of the crypto mixing protocol, for money laundering. Since the creator used the website to launder $1.2 billion in criminal funds unlawfully, he was sentenced to five years and four months in prison.
In an earlier charge, Pertsev was supposed to be aware of the illicit origins of some of the transactions on the platform he co-developed.
