According to a Bloomberg report published On December 27, the US Department of Justice launched an investigation into the whereabouts of approximately $372 million in missing digital assets from the now-defunct FTX and FTX US cryptocurrency exchange. On November 12, amid bankruptcy and internal collapse, FTX warned clients of abnormal wallet activity regarding at least 228,523 Ether (ETH) transferred off the exchange by an unknown perpetrator.
On November 11, or the night of the company's bankruptcy filing, FTX US General Counsel Ryne Miller confirmed that the the transactions were unauthorized and that the subsidiary exchange had moved all cryptocurrencies to cold wallets as a precaution. On Nov. 20, blockchain forensics firm Elliptic wrote that unauthorized transfers totaled $477 million and that the unknown perpetrator exchanged the stolen Ether for RenBTC, before connecting to Bitcoin via the RenBridge service. Ren was acquired by FTX-linked hedge fund Alameda Research last year and Elliptic has alleged that it "launders hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto."
FTX's disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, claimed that the incident was perpetrated by a former FTX employee or by someone who had unauthorized access to a former employee's computer. โI narrowed it down to about eight people. I don't know which one it was,โ he said in an interview with citizen journalist Tiffany Fong.
In the last known update to the issue on Nov. 29, crypto analyst zachXBT alleged that a portion of the stolen funds were transferred to Singapore-based exchange OKX using a Bitcoin mixer. Lennix Lai, director of OKX, responded: "#OKX is aware of the situation and the team is investigating the wallet flow."
#OKX is aware of the situation and the team is investigating the flow of the wallet.
โlennixlai.eth (OKX) (@LennixOKX) November 29, 2022
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