Nirvana Finance Hacker Pleads Guilty: Faces a 5 Years Sentence
Security engineer admits to crypto hacks, agrees to return $12.3M and pay $5M to victims, facing up to 5 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York shared the news about a 34-year-old security engineer, Shakeeb Ahmed, who confessed to hacking Nirvana Finance and another crypto exchange.
Ahmed has agreed to give back $12.3 million from the hacks, he would also pay $5 million to the victims. This is the first-ever conviction for a smart contract hack in the U.S.
Ahmed was charged with wire fraud and money laundering in July. He used a weak spot in a smart contract of a Solana-based exchange, people think this exchange is Crema Finance. After that, he stole $3.6 million from Nirvana Finance using a flash loan. Nirvana tried to negotiate with him, offering him $600,000 to return the money, but Ahmed wanted $1.4 million, so they didn't agree.
Ahmed was able to hide the stolen money using various complex methods like token swaps, moving funds between blockchains, and using hard-to-track cryptocurrencies. He is to be sentenced on March 13, he could be sentenced to five years in prison
