On June 23, two Israeli brothers were arrested in connection with the 2016 Bitfinex hack and other crypto-related phishing attacks.
About 120,000 Bitcoin (BTC) were stolen in the attack back in 2016. It was worth $72 million but after Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in the summer of 2019, the value of the stolen funds now amount to around $1.4 billion. Speaking to Finance Magnates, an Israeli police spokesperson said that Eli and Assaf Gigi bagged tens of millions of dollars from their activities. During police raid a cryptocurrency wallet containing a much smaller sum than the pair are alleged to have stolen was located.
The spokesperson said the brothers lured in their victims by creating clone versions of major online crypto exchanges and wallet providers and shared links to them through both Telegram groups and other cryptocurrency-related communities.
They are also accused of being behind the Bitfinex hack, which also involved identity theft and compromising of several users’ accounts.
This is the second time the Bitfinex hack has been brought back into the open in the past few weeks. On June 7th, it was reported that $1.5 million of the funds stolen in the hack had been moved from the hackers’ personal wallets to an unknown address.