Avraham Eisenberg, the crypto trader responsible for the $110 million exploit of decentralized exchange Mango Markets has been arrested in Puerto Rico.
In October, Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, Mango Markets was exploited for more than $100 million by manipulating price oracle data. In addition, the hacker took out under-collateralized cryptocurrency loans from the platform.
Nearly $50 million worth of USDC, more than $26.7 million worth of Marinade Staked SOL (mSOL), and $24 million worth of SOL were drained out of the DeFi platform. Moreover, it was estimated at the time of attack that more than $14.7 million worth of MNGO tokens were withdrawn.
Crypto Traders Busted for $110M Exploit
According to a complaint filed with the Southern District of New York and made public on December 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) charged Avraham Eisenberg with one count commodities fraud and one count of commodities manipulation in relation to his exploit of Mango Markets.
As per the complaint, Eisenberg had artificially inflated the price of MNGO relative to USDC, allowing him to borrow and then withdraw $110 million of different cryptocurrencies. Eisenberg has recently claimed responsibility for the exploit noting he was involved in a team that “operated a highly profitable trading strategy”.
Statement on recent events:
I was involved with a team that operated a highly profitable trading strategy last week.
— Avraham Eisenberg (@avi_eisen) October 15, 2022
However, Eisenberg believes that his strategy was legal open market actions. A day after the exploit, Mango was involved in a discussion with Eisenberg which resulted in the return of nearly $67 million in various crypto assets. FBI special agent Brandon Racz explained,
“Eisenberg engaged in a scheme involving the intentional and artificial manipulation of the price of perpetual futures contracts on a cryptocurrency exchange called Mango Markets, and other manipulative and deceptive devices and contrivances.”
Flurry of Arrests
Recently, several arrests have been made regarding various frauds and hacks in the crypto ecosystem. On December 12, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas after being criminally charged by the U.S. government. He was arrested on several charges including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering.
Earlier this month, US prosecutors arrested Rikesh Thapa, the former chief technology officer (CTO) of NFT ticketing platform, Blockparty, on charges of stealing more than $1 million in cash and cryptocurrency from the company. Furthermore, in November, the two founders of the now-defunct Bitcoin cloud miner HashFlare were arrested in Estonia over their alleged involvement in a $575 million crypto fraud conspiracy.
