Shakeeb Ahmed, a cybersecurity engineer found guilty of absconding with approximately $12 million in cryptocurrency, received a three-year prison term on Friday.
The announcement came through a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Ahmed faced accusations of breaching two cryptocurrency exchanges and making off with roughly $12 million in digital currency, according to prosecutors.
Adam Schwartz and Bradley Bondi, the legal representatives for Ahmed, did not provide an immediate response to requests for comment.
At the time of his arrest last year, authorities identified Ahmed as a “senior security engineer for an international technology company.” While his LinkedIn profile indicated past employment at Amazon, an Amazon spokesperson clarified that he was not employed there at the time of his arrest, as reported by TechCrunch.
Though the identity of one victim remained undisclosed, Ahmed purportedly infiltrated Crema Finance, a Solana-based cryptocurrency exchange, in early July 2022.
Subsequently, Ahmed breached Nirvana Finance weeks later, making off with $9 million and $3.6 million in the two hacks, respectively. The latter incident resulted in the complete depletion of Nirvana’s funds, leading to its closure, according to the press release.
Ahmed confessed to orchestrating both cyberattacks.
Following the breach at Crema, Ahmed attempted to return the pilfered funds to the company, albeit with a condition of retaining a $1.5 million “finder’s fee” and an assurance that Crema would not report the incident to authorities. Crema declined the offer, leading to Ahmed’s eventual arrest.
While such agreements are uncommon in cybersecurity circles, they have become normalized within the cryptocurrency domain. Referred to as “white hatting,” these arrangements involve hacking into a target’s system and misappropriating funds without consent, akin to the actions of a “black hat” hacker. Ahmed’s case underscores a disparity between industry acceptance and law enforcement’s stance on such practices.
In addition to the three-year prison sentence, Ahmed was sentenced to three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to forfeit $12.4 million, along with a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, and to pay restitution exceeding $5 million to the affected Crypto Exchange and Nirvana, as stated in the prosecutors’ press release.
