Two brothers, who graduated from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are accused in the United States of stealing $25 million worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency in just 12 seconds. This was reported by the BBC, according to UNN.
Details
Anton Per-Bueno, 24, and James Per-Bueno, 28, are accused of fraud and money laundering.
The U.S. Department of Justice said that this was the first robbery of its kind. Prosecutors claim that the brothers committed the theft in April 2023.
The brothers stole $25 million in the cryptocurrency Ethereum using a technologically sophisticated, advanced scheme that they developed over several months and executed in seconds,
According to the prosecutor's office, the brothers "used the specialized skills they had learned at one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Allegedly, they fraudulently accessed transactions in the system awaiting confirmation, then intercepted them and received their victims' cryptocurrency. The process took a few seconds.
The scheme used by the defendants calls into question the very integrity of blockchain technology,
According to Ethereum representatives, the brothers refused to return the stolen funds and took steps to launder them.
Each of the defendants now faces more than 20 years in prison.
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