- A French court has cleared Platypus exploiters of any wrongdoing
- The exploiters argued that they were white hat hackers and intended to return the stolen funds for a bounty
- The funds are however locked in an inaccessible wallet
Platypus exploiters identified as Mohammed and Benamar M are free individuals after a French court cleared them of all criminal charges. The two, who are brothers, told the court they didn’t have malicious intentions and planned on returning the over $8 million they had siphoned from the platform in exchange for a 10% bounty. They, however, weren’t able to return the funds since they were locked in an inaccessible wallet, a case that confirms that law enforcement agencies are getting better at tracking malicious actors in the DeFi space.
A Flash Loan Attack from White Hat Hackers
Mohammed and Benamar had stolen the funds by exploiting a deficiency in the protocol’s code to conduct a flash loan attack in February this year. An investigation revealed their identities and were taken into custody in the same month.
We are seeing a #flashloan attack on @Platypusdefi resulting in a potential loss of ~$8.5M.
Tx AVAX: 0x1266a937c2ccd970e5d7929021eed3ec593a95c68a99b4920c2efa226679b430
Stay Frosty! pic.twitter.com/AM2HOM5M2r
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) February 16, 2023
During their hearing in October, they said that they are white hat hackers and weren’t planning on keeping the entire loot.
According to the court, the two aren’t malicious actors adding that their actions were an attempt to hunt for a bug bounty since they only intended to keep 10% of the funds. Unfortunately, most of the stolen funds were mistakenly sent to an inaccessible wallet.
KyberSwap Hacker Wants Total Control
Apart from the February hack, the DeFi protocol was also exploited again in October although the hacker returned 90% of the funds after negotiations with the Platypus team.
1/ Following successful negotiations, we are making good progress and 90% of the funds stolen from the sAVAX pool have now been successfully returned by the exploiter. As promised, Platypus will guarantee that no legal action will be pursued.
— Platypus 🔺 (🦆+🦦+🦫) (@Platypusdefi) October 17, 2023
The French court’s decision comes a few days after the KyberSwap hacker demanded control of the Kyber company and warned the Kyber team against involving law enforcement agencies in tracking him.
With Mohammed and Benamar set free, it’s to be seen whether malicious actors in the web3 space will lean on being white hat actors when taken to court.
