Tag: theft

Chainalysis Used Ai To Trace The $387m Bitget Hack Back To North Korea

In a recent blog post, blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis attributed the $387 million theft from cryptocurrency exchange Bitget to North Korean state-sponsored hackers. The firm used a combination of its’ AI-powered cryptocurrency analysis and its’ traditional investigative methods to track the stolen funds, moving them across multiple blockchains. Importantly, although the firm used technology to enhance the analysis of the data, it was human investigators who ultimately attributed the theft and controlled the output of their analysis.

After the breach, the attackers had been using more sophisticated techniques for laundering the stolen assets, spreading them through cross-chain liquidity protocols, messaging platforms, instant swap services, as well as specialized laundering infrastructure. The scale of such attempts highlights the attackers’ high level of experience in managing a large-scale cybercrime operation and in evading detection by blockchain forensics experts, writes Decrypt.

Stolen XRP was handled differently by the hackers and after some time it was converted into Bitcoin through cross-chain liquidity protocol and then extracted from the pool on the other side of the trade. This cross-chain arbitrage was used by hackers not only to convert very traceable asset into something else but also to make it as anonymous as possible by hopping from one protocol to another. The activity of extracting tens of millions of dollars in assets through this method took approximately 36 hours.

We previously highlighted that the attack bore similarities to past attacks conducted by DPRK cyber crime operators, as identified by Bitget CEO Gracy Chen. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic also assessed the involvement of North Korean cyber crime operators in the theft to be “highly likely”.

The money laundering activity is very transparent and is being carried out on public blockchains. The attacker moved parts of the funds to Zcash’s shielded pool in order to use the privacy features. However, how swap services react to these transactions varies greatly. Near Intents for example rejected over $50m in hacker-linked transactions. They got hacked days later though. Thorchain on the other hand continued to process the suspect transactions.

However, stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Tether were able to prevent $318,000 in stablecoins that were siphoned off in the hack from entering circulation. The move highlights the power of centralized control of widely held stablecoins even as the broader decentralized trading environment continues to facilitate hacker activity.

Keep reading

Denver Socialist Mayoral Candidate Says Prior Arrest for Theft of Food Stamp Benefits ‘Actually Qualifies’ Her to Hold Office 

Shontel Lewis, a Democratic Socialist running in the Denver mayoral election, has a unique spin on her prior arrest for the theft of food stamps. She says it makes her more qualified to hold office.

In 2008, while she worked at the Department of Human Services East Food Stamp Office, Lewis used that job to take public benefit money that belonged to other people.

According to the police affidavit reported by the Denver Post, she searched EBT systems for inactive accounts that still had money and reissued benefit cards from those accounts.

She then gave cards to a roommate to use for food and cash benefits.

Investigators tied her to at least five to seven cases accessed over about five months starting in March 2008.

Although she initially denied wrongdoing, she later admitted it and said she was struggling financially. Initially, she was charged with more serious counts, but pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft. A felony theft count was deferred and later dismissed in 2011.

She served 18 months of probation and was ordered to pay more than $6,000 in restitution.

Keep reading

Illegal Alien Indicted by Federal Grand Jury for Numerous Crimes Including Voter Fraud and Theft of Government Funds

An illegal alien from Mexico was indicted by a federal grand jury this week for numerous crimes, including voter fraud, making a false statement applying for a passport, and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Fredy Avila Gomez is also being indicted on wire fraud and stealing government funds.

Based on court records, from 2017 to 2026, Gomez intentionally defrauded US government agencies and the State of Idaho. The list of agencies included Health and Human Services, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.

Gomez allegedly made false claims to be a citizen of the United States in order to vote in elections.

He has his first court appearance scheduled for September 21st in the US District Court for the District of Idaho. Gomez is looking at a maximum of 20 years in federal prison if he is convicted on the charges.

The prosecutors handling the case are Assistant US Attorneys Sean Mazorol and Darci Crane.

The DOJ created the National Fraud Enforcement Division earlier this year to prosecute individuals committing fraud against the United States and its citizens.

Keep reading

Maduro Ally Pleads Guilty In Miami To Scheme That Stole Venezuelan Welfare Funds

The former minister of industry for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s regime pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a global money laundering conspiracy that skimmed millions from a Venezuelan public welfare program.

According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) news release, Alex Saab, 54, who was extradited from Venezuela in May and charged days later, conducted a decade-long scheme that defrauded a Venezuelan welfare program for food and medicine, netting hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and associates.

Saab, a Colombian businessman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder monetary instruments before federal district Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.

“Criminals like Alex Saab who stole from the people of Venezuela and worked to exploit and misuse American financial institutions to fund illicit activities will be held accountable,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in the news release.

Saab is accused of bilking the welfare program known as Local Committee for Supply and Production, or CLAP (Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción).

The ex-minister admitted to using a system of bribes and illegal payments to public officials. Entities controlled by conspirators in the scheme would be rewarded with lucrative contracts from the Venezuelan government to import food and medicine under CLAP.

Saab and his conspirators did not fulfill the contracts and would instead use fake companies, false invoices and shipping records, and other fraudulent documents to unlawfully obtain millions while concealing their association with the scheme, the DOJ said.

Saab further admitted he used shell companies outside his country to launder the illegal proceeds around the world, including in the United States.

DOJ Assistant Attorney General Andrew Duva said Saab exploited the American financial system to profit off Venezuelans, creating a “complex web of front companies, shell accounts, and false records to perpetuate his scheme.”

Saab previously was in U.S. custody until former President Joe Biden released him in December 2023 as part of a prisoner swap with Venezuela. The deal included the Venezuelan regime’s release of 30 prisoners, including 10 Americans.

“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela celebrates with joy the liberation and return to his homeland of our diplomat Alex Saab, who until today was unjustly kidnapped in a U.S. jail,” the Venezuelan government said following the prisoner-swap deal.

Saab was removed from his position earlier this year by acting leader Delcy Rodríguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president until he was captured by U.S. forces in an overnight raid on Caracas in January.

Saab was initially charged in July 2019 on money laundering counts.

He was detained about a year later in the Republic of Cabo Verde at the request of the U.S. government and was eventually extradited to American custody.

“President Biden granted Alex Saab clemency while he was awaiting trial in [Miami], and Saab was released from federal custody and returned to Venezuela. But that was not the end of the story,” said U.S. Attorney Jason Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.

Quiñones’s office secured a new indictment against Saab in January 2026, and by May he was back in Miami federal court.

Keep reading

CIA officer found with $40 million in gold bars in his basement reaches tentative plea agreement

Federal prosecutors said on Friday that they reached a tentative plea deal with a former CIA officer who was found with more than $40 million in gold bars in the basement of his Virginia home. 

According to U.S. officials, David J. Rush, who was an officer in the agency’s science and technology division, created a false classified program that only a few people were allowed to know about. The program allowed him to accumulate the gold bars. He was arrested on May 19 after FBI agents found 303 gold bars and nearly three dozen luxury watches in his home, the New York Times reported. 

gov.uscourts.vaed_.596235.31.0.pdf

A court filing seeking an extension of time to file an indictment states that government lawyers and Rush’s attorney told a federal district court in Virginia that a “preindictment resolution promotes the public interest.” Part of the reason, the attorneys explained, is the extensive hurdles that dealing with classified material might create to a trial.

“The parties have made significant progress and have a plea agreement in principle that would resolve the matter prior to an indictment,” the government and defense lawyers wrote in a joint filing to the court.

In a court filing, the lawyers for the government and Rush’s attorney asked the court to give them until Oct. 8 to reach an agreement. 

Keep reading

US Customs supervisor busted for stealing Core i7 CPUs, RAM, and hard drives from Homeland Security PCs, damage estimated at $105,800 — stolen tech swapped with inferior hardware and cashed out on Newegg

According to a report from The Maine Wire, the FBI has arrested and charged Terry “Jiajia” Liu, a Customs and Border Protection supervisor based in Calais, Maine, for theft and damage to government property. Liu allegedly stole computer hardware, including Intel 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh processors, memory modules, and hard drives, from at least 46 Department of Homeland Security computers across three Maine border facilities. They replaced the stolen parts with inferior hardware and exchanged the stolen equipment through Newegg’s trade-in program for store credit.

Liu’s official responsibilities were limited to information-technology support, so they did not have access to modify any government computer. Port Director Theodore Cummings made the restriction abundantly clear to Liu in a written order: “Please do not move any computers or computer parts.” However, criminals rarely listen.

Hidden surveillance cameras captured Liu opening government computers and swapping hardware during the midnight shift. The perpetrator would take the systems to a training room to commit the crime. One camera recording showed Liu using a screwdriver to scrape thermal paste off a processor and installing a replacement chip in one system. Meanwhile, another recording caught Liu removing a memory module from a system and storing it in their desk drawer.

Keep reading

Ben Shapiro’s Uncle Who Stole U.S. Uranium and Built Israel’s Nuclear Program

Ben Shapiro has a favorite word.

Conspiracy.

Question whether Israeli pressure helped drag America into another Middle Eastern war?

“Conspiracy trash.”

Question Israel’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein?

“Mythology.”

Keep investigating?

“Brain rot.”

When Joe Kent accused Israel and its powerful American lobby of helping push America toward war with Iran, Shapiro did not merely disagree.

He ridiculed the question.

“Conspiracy trash.”
“Conspiratorial idiocy.”
“This stuff is brain rot.”

But there is one problem with Ben Shapiro’s favorite word:

OPEN HIS OWN FAMILY’S FILES.

Ben’s uncle, Zalman Shapiro, ran NUMEC, a Pennsylvania facility handling highly enriched uranium that became the center of a decades-long U.S. investigation into missing American nuclear material diverted to Israel.

The CIA became sufficiently concerned about Shapiro’s relationship with Israel that CIA Director Richard Helms asked the FBI to investigate the “nature and extent” of that relationship.

Then Israeli intelligence figures appeared inside his nuclear facility.

One of them was Rafael Eitan.

Eitan would later head LAKAM, run Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, and participate in the Plumbat operation, which covertly diverted roughly 200 tons of uranium oxide to Israel.

So before Ben Shapiro dismisses questions about Israeli intelligence and influence as “brain rot,” there is somewhere Americans should look first:

His uncle’s files.

Keep reading

SoCal: Orange County Woman Shocked as FBI Agents Arrest Her For Stealing More Than $400,000 From High School Football Team in Pre-Dawn Raid

The FBI on Thursday morning arrested an Orange County, California, woman for stealing more than $400,000 from a high school football team.

56-year-old Julie Hanway Molina was the treasurer of an Orange County nonprofit and allegedly used more than $400,000 in stolen funds to pay off her mortgage and credit card debt.

Video posted to social media by the California Post shows FBI agents and local law enforcement surrounding Molina’s $1.4 million Aliso Viejo home early Thursday morning and taking her into custody.

The California Post reported that Julie Hanway Molina was stunned as federal agents used a bullhorn and demanded she “come out with your hands up.”

Molina walked out of her front door and looked shocked as federal agents handcuffed her.

Federal prosecutors alleged in the indictment that the scheme to defraud Aliso Niguel High School’s Wolverine Football Club began in 2023 and went through 2025.

Keep reading

BUSTED: AirTags Lead Police Straight to Home of Retired Columbus State Professor and Democrat-Donor Wife After Conservative Candidate’s Campaign Signs Disappear

A conservative-leaning independent candidate in Columbus, Georgia, got tired of watching his campaign signs vanish. He hid Apple AirTags inside them.

The trackers did not ping a dumpster or a random yard. They led straight to the home of a well-known local reverend and her husband, a retired Columbus State University educator.

Stephen Acorn is running as an Independent write-in against longtime Democrat incumbent Debbie Buckner for Georgia House District 137.

After signs kept disappearing near Matthews Elementary School and County Line Road, Acorn cut open replacements, slipped AirTags inside, and waited.

“I feel like I outsmarted the perpetrator,” Acorn told NowGeorgia.com, which first reported the story.

Within 24 hours, Acorn received an alert showing that two of the signs were moving.

The tracking devices eventually led Acorn and police to the residence of retired Columbus State educator Richard Spencer Garrard and his wife, Rev. Dr. Cindy Cox Garrard.

Keep reading

Chinese chipmaker CXMT allegedly used a written roadmap to steal Samsung DRAM tech — South Korean court says ‘Project Hefei’ lifted 620-step recipe to build 10% global market share

The saga involving Chinese DRAM maker CXMT’s alleged theft of Samsung’s trade secrets is going strong. The South Korean court case already includes multiple convictions, two of which carry prison sentences for ex-Samsung engineers. The latest chapter is a doozy, though. Korean publication NoCut News spilled the chips on Project Hefei, a purported CXMT roadmap outlining long-term planning about said technology “acquisitions,” personnel poaching, and production tape-out — all key pieces that may have directly led to CXMT’s ascension to 10% of the global DRAM market.

According to leaked court documents, the prosecution says that Project Hefei was CXMT’s entire DRAM development plan and was spearheaded by the firm’s head of development (formerly Samsung’s DRAM development lead), around August 2016 — not much longer after CXMT itself was created in June 2016.

In brief, the purported plan was to nab Samsung’s Process Recipe Plan (PRP) by September 2016, poach key Samsung engineers by October 2016, have R&D complete in July 2017, and start making DRAM wafers by August 2018 at a rate of 10,000 a month. NoCut says the PRP dataset comprises 620 steps in DRAM manufacturing and includes data on equipment, consumables, and production methods.

The report states that in August 2016, CXMT first attempted to make wafers of 18nm chips by relying on the collective memories of the Samsung engineers it had hired away. Those recollections apparently proved insufficient, so after allegedly gaining illicit access to Samsung’s PRP, CXMT prepared its own document in September 2016. The leaked data even included specific equipment suppliers and model numbers.

Keep reading