Cybersecurity Engineer Faces 3 Year Prison Sentence for Crypto Theft

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – A cyber security engineer, Shakeeb Ahmed, who was convicted of stealing around USD 12 million or the equivalent of IDR 193.4 billion (assuming an exchange rate of IDR 16,117 per US dollar) in crypto, was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday, April 12 2024.

Reporting from Yahoo Finance, Monday (15/4/2024), in a press release, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence. Ahmed is accused of hacking two cryptocurrency exchanges, and stealing about USD 12 million in crypto, according to prosecutors.

Ahmed was arrested last year, with authorities describing him as a senior security engineer at an international technology company. His LinkedIn profile says he previously worked at Amazon. However, he was not working there at the time of his arrest.

Although the name of one of his victims was never revealed, Ahmed reportedly hacked Crema Finance, a Solana-based crypto exchange, in early July 2022.

Then, a few weeks later, he hacked Nirvana Finance. Ahmed stole USD 9 million or the equivalent of IDR 145 billion and USD 3.6 million or the equivalent of IDR 58 billion respectively in the two hacks.

In the case of Nirvana Finance, the stolen funds represented approximately all of the funds owned by Nirvana, which led to Nirvana Finance being shut down, according to the press release.

Ahmed pleaded guilty to having carried out both cyberattacks. After hacking Crema, Ahmed contacted the company in an attempt to recover the stolen funds, except for a USD 1.5 million fee such as an informal finder's fee and a promise that Crema would not report the attack to the authorities.

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