FTX thief cashes out millions during Bankman-Fried trial

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67090501

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

102 84 3 years ago

bbc.co.uk

leftnode• 3 years ago

Is it widely assumed the thief is North Korea?

a2tech• 3 years ago

An internal actor seems more likely to me, but who knows?

robertlagrant• 3 years ago

As in an FTX staff member?

sneak2• 3 years ago

The FBI et al are very good at surveillance. I doubt anyone close enough to SBF to be part of a criminal conspiracy would be unknown to the FBI or not under surveillance at this point.

henriquez2• 3 years ago

Definitely North Korea. Just like that time the feds blamed North Korea for the Sony hack and then years later it was quietly revealed to have been a disgruntled former employee.

Occam’s Razor says it’s an employee, perhaps SBF himself (because #yolo).

ct0• 3 years ago

No doubt this could have been a pre-written script.

tedunangst4• 3 years ago

Why haven't they arrested the former employee?

edgyquant• 3 years ago

the Sony hack and then years later it was quietly revealed to have been a disgruntled former employee.

Source? As far as I can tell it’s still considered to have been North Korea

ceejayoz• 3 years ago

years later it was quietly revealed to have been a disgruntled former employee

It doesn't appear to be anywhere near as solid as that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sony_Pictures_hack#Doubts...

dragonwriter5• 3 years ago

I don't know what is widely assumed, but I personally assume it was one of the insiders who shared credentials with the pretty clear intention of making it impossible to individually attribute any shenanigans, most likely SBF himself who actually did the theft.

Given the degree of surveillance he is under, he probably didn't directly execute the sale (but I wouldn't bet too heavily even on that.)

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

i would guess about 0% likelihood it is him. more liekly a hacker or employee. Being CEO, Sam would have the authority to take the money himself. He would not need to hack his own exchange.

__derek__• 3 years ago

From TFA:

Some of the stolen Bitcoin successfully laundered last year has been traced to a wallet known to be used by Russian-linked criminal groups. Elliptic says this could point to the involvement of a broker or other intermediary with a link to Russia.

IMO, the most compelling story is that the thief is an attacker who had previously gained access, saw the news, and acted quickly to grab what they could. Security was not exactly a priority for these people.

throwaway2903• 3 years ago

Which likely is another example how crypto helps Russia to persevere against Ukraine despite sanctions.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

any bitcoin can be traced to any other wallet if mixed enough or if enough hops. so what. proves nothing.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

Why would he need to hack his own exchange if he is CEO? He can just move the funds himself. I would wager it is not North Korea. Probably some guy in a developed country if I had to guess. That was the case with Bitfinex , for example. It's not who you would expect.

NelsonMinar• 3 years ago

It's widely assumed the thief is someone at FTX.

jwmoz• 3 years ago

Thief aka employee.

y_gy• 3 years ago

I would guess that this is actually SBF acting through an accomplice. Of course everyone's going to look at SBF when asking where that final $400 million went. Right now he's on trial, in the courtroom, everyone sees him there -- perfect Alibi.

chatmasta• 3 years ago

You could have reasonably said Ross Ulbricht was the main suspect in the theft of Silk Road bitcoins, but it turned out to be two FBI agents involved with the case.

tedunangst4• 3 years ago

That would be these guys: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-federal-agents-charged...

Not this guy: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-h...

runeofdoom• 3 years ago

Surely the FBI agents were cunningly framed by the real Dread Pirate Roberts.

bostonsre• 3 years ago

It would be funny if his parents just stopped showing up to court and couldn't be found anywhere.

bluelu• 3 years ago

That's a classic move.

We also had once an office admin stealing stuff. When we revoked his access cards and fire him, he came back the night with a different acces scard and stole more stuff and would pretend then that since his badge was revoked, it couldnt have been him in the first place

belter• 3 years ago

The coincidence of this happening during the trial...is just bizarre. Can you imagine if it is actually the case?

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

Again, why would he need to hack his own exchange if he is admin/ceo and has 'god mode' to just move funds from address A to B (one he knows the private key to and no paper trail) undetected?

someotherperson2• 3 years ago

Hardly cashing out directly. The thief is probably just selling the crypto to criminal outfit(s) able to launder it at a highly reduced amount. Maybe even just 10% of its crypto value.

The thief gets paid, doesn't need to worry about cashing it out, and the outfit that has experience in laundering can just go to work and get a massive payday.

hiccuphippo• 3 years ago

Can't the addresses with the money be marked as obsolete or something like that so no miner accepts transactions from them? Only 50%+1 need to agree on this, right?

yieldcrv2• 3 years ago

two different concepts to explains separately

but ultimately there are many roadblocks to that ever happening, which is something people find valuable about those kind of systems

Drakim• 3 years ago

Decentralization not only means that you need 50%+1 of miners to accept, but also that there isn't a centralized driving authority to kick-start banning initiatives like that.

ezconnect• 3 years ago

That's one of the main reason crypto is being promoted, freedom from central control.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

It can be labeled, but this does not stop the thief from moving it. Otherwise, the network would need to fork, which will never happen for somethign like this. Even if it did fork, he would still be left with pre-forked coins, which would be worth something. In the case of the Ethereum Dao hacker, the thief still got Ethereum Classic coins worth millions.

yieldcrv2• 3 years ago

yeah, pretty easy to retain 90% or more

just got to use the dirty address with dirty funds to pump an asset you already own in a separate clean address that you bought with clean KYC’d money.

you just sell the asset your dirty money pumped and now you’re just another lucky speculator that bought a random meme coin early with some capital gains tax to pay.

if you get ambitious maybe other people keep pumping the asset and your dirty address can sell the asset at even higher prices again to them. rinse repeat.

dragonwriter5• 3 years ago

Hardly cashing out directly. [...] The thief is probably just selling the crypto to criminal outfit(s) able to launder it at a highly reduced amount.

That's the thief cashing out directly. (Maybe for less than the apparent value, but still cashing out.)

someotherperson2• 3 years ago

With this model, the thief has already cashed out and washed their hands from this. It's now the secondary (or third) buyers of the crypto cashing out.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

This is crypto, not artwork, jewelry, or coins. the thief should have no problem getting market value. part of the attraction of crypto from the criminal perspective is the liquidity and fungibility compared to other types of heists. large volumes can be moved at close to spot price.

dstroot• 3 years ago

From what I have read SBF doesn't "feel things" like compassion, remorse, or respect for authority and government. On one hand one could argue SBF stole the crypto (after all he was in the best position to know both the wallets and the exact timing it was going to come crashing down) and he is raising cash to flee - if that is even possible. On the other hand it's kind of brilliant timing if SBF didn't take the crypto for the actual parties to put more suspicion on SBF. The trial does not seem to be going well for him in either case.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 3 years ago

I think the main reason the trial isn't going well for him is his obvious, overwhelming, and well documented guilt of committing the crimes he's charged with.

treyd• 3 years ago

Does he actually feel guilt over it or does he know he has to perform the appearance of feeling guilty?

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

That just means he doesn't have good legal representation and political cover, doesn't it?

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

The feds almost never lose. going to trial never a smart move. the best he can hope for is a sympathetic jury

KoftaBob• 3 years ago

Sounds like an unholy mix of sociopath and incredible levels of autism.

Rhubi• 3 years ago

I suspect him still but I think he thought the rules would continue to not apply to him so there was no need to do something like this. I think it is only now that he realises that his goose is cooked and the the tell is getting his hair cut - the wild genius act is over and the new act will be remorseful and obedient in an attempt to only get ~20years. If only he could get pregnant and skate like Holmes.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

. On one hand one could argue SBF stole the crypto (after all he was in the best position to know both the wallets and the exact timing it was going to come crashing down) and he is raising cash to flee - if that is even possible.

I would assign a near 0% likelihood of this . For one, why would he need to hack his own exchange? Just quietly move funds to a secret address he know the private key to. Done. Being the CEO he would have 'god mode' authority to do this, and being a private company no audits anyway.

amenhotep• 3 years ago

"hidden, internally poorly labelled '@SBF retirement fund' account"

rokkitmensch• 3 years ago

Criminal malcompetence on the part of the software "engineers", as attested to in trial. If this particular inside threat were possible, they either skipped kindergarten cryptography or conveniently forgot how to split keys.

akira2501• 3 years ago

I have read SBF doesn't "feel things" like compassion, remorse, or respect for authority and government.

Given his complete lack of life experience and rather sheltered existence, I strongly doubt this type of shallow self analysis. He's purposefully lived a life where he gets to avoid those responsibilities, instead, preferring to live with payrolled groupies in a mansion doing drugs and stealing money all day.

purpleblue• 3 years ago

If I had $470 million in stolen crypto, I would target to keep around 10% of that, and with the other 90%, just send them to random crypto wallets around the world. I would do that for years and years and lead the cops on expensive wild goose chases and get hundreds of thousands of people entangled, and then transfer some to me every now and then through different identities.

I don't see how this can be stopped, unless somehow they traced the execution of crypto transactions to a particular IP address and time.

twoodfin• 3 years ago

It’s not the crypto transactions that would get you, I think. It’s turning that crypto into hard currency: This is money laundering, and while lots of criminals successfully launder money, quite a bit of effort is expended at all levels to make handing someone large volumes of cash—for any purported reason—difficult to do unscrutinized.

ghaff• 3 years ago

And even if someone is able to get their hands on a few briefcases full of $100 bills (or probably better a steamer trunk full of smaller bills), it's probably going to be hard to actually use that much money--at least for legal transactions.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

someone who is smart enough to pull this off probably is smart enough to not be caught

rchaud• 3 years ago

I would target to keep around 10% of that, and with the other 90%, just send them to random crypto wallets around the world.

Your idealism or whimsy would have evaporated long before you accumulated anything close to that amount. No one in crypto is in it for the lulz, least of all SBF who was a media poster boy for "effective altruism".

Past the point of lifetime financial comfort, money is simply a way of keeping score in a game. And the players at the table tend to be some of the worst individuals in the world.

paulpauper12• 3 years ago

there are no such thing as 'crypto transactions to IP addresses' unless he uses an exchange.

WXLCKNO• 3 years ago

What do you mean? When you broadcast a transaction you do it from an IP address.

Validators/Miners/Nodes whatever can see which IP broadcast a transaction. There's definitely a way to link an IP address to a transaction if you're not using a VPN or TOR.

m3kw9• 3 years ago

Knowing how they handle security, anyone that has access to the network could easily steal it.

bogomipz• 3 years ago

Can anyone speculate on the timing? If it's something more than coincidence what could it be?

FTX thief cashes out millions during Bankman-Fried trial

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