Two suspects are in French Police custody today for exploiting DeFi protocol Platypus Finance. The stableswap protocol was the target of a flash loan attack last Thursday which saw a loss of $9 million and caused the Platypus USD (USP) stablecoin to lose its dollar peg.
The French Police Nationale announced the the arrest earlier today via twitter.
“The Police Nationale ends a major scam for damages of 9.5 million on an American cryptocurrency exchange company,” read the tweet.
They also mentioned they’ve seized €210,000 in cryptocurrency.
Platypus announced the arrest themselves and thanked crypto exchange Binance, and on-chain sleuth ZachXBT for their effort in helping track down the identity of the exploiters.
On-chain detective
Hours after the exploit, ZachXBT managed to trace numerous addresses attached to the attack back to a (now deactivated) account with the user handle “retlqw”.
According to Platypus, the exploiter had submitted a USDT withdrawal on a Binance account that was KYC verified, allowing their identity to be revealed and passed on to law enforcement.
Platypus recover plan
Outlined in a blog post by Platypus, the protocol has ensued that a minimum of 63% of funds will be distributed to those affected but is working to get that number higher. If the proposal submitted to unlock funds stuck in Aave is approved, and USDT agrees to remint the frozen stablecoins, then users will be getting close to 78% reimbursed.
