"Crypto Heist: Canadian National Accused of Stealing $65M from DeFi Protocols"

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a Canadian national, Andean Medjedovic, with exploiting two decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, KyberSwap and Indexed Finance, resulting in the theft of approximately $65 million. The indictment, unsealed on February 3 in a Brooklyn federal court, accuses Medjedovic of hacking, attempted extortion, money laundering, and wire fraud.

Prosecutors allege that Medjedovic carried out "deceptive trades" to steal around $16.5 million from liquidity pools on Indexed Finance in October 2021. Later, in November 2022, he executed a similar attack to exploit KyberSwap, stealing approximately $48.8 million. The indictment states that Medjedovic borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars in digital tokens, which he used to manipulate key variables in the protocols' smart contracts, allowing him to withdraw millions of dollars at artificial prices and rendering investors' funds essentially worthless.

After allegedly exploiting KyberSwap, Medjedovic attempted to extort the victims through a sham settlement proposal. He sent a series of on-chain messages threatening to delay negotiations around returning funds and later demanded control of the protocol in exchange for returning 50% of the digital assets he fraudulently obtained. The indictment alleges that Medjedovic then conspired with a relative to launder the stolen crypto through a crypto mixer and various blockchain bridges, with the aim of cashing out on exchanges and into bank accounts created using fake information.

Prosecutors said that after an unnamed bridge protocol froze some of the funds, Medjedovic allegedly paid around $85,000 to an undercover law enforcement agent posing as a software developer to free the crypto. Medjedovic is currently at large, and information for his lawyers was not available. He could not be reached for comment.