A former top cybersecurity engineer at Amazon is being charged with wire fraud and laundering money because, on July 2, 2022, he allegedly hacked a decentralized Bitcoin exchange.
Shakeeb Ahmed is said to have used his skills to steal $9 million in coins from the exchange and its customers.
Shakeeb Ahmed could spend twenty years in jail for each charge if he is found guilty.
After the theft, Ahmed was said to have used complicated blockchain transactions to wash away the stolen money. To do this, coins had to be traded, blockchains had to be crossed, and foreign crypto markets had to be used.
According to IRS-CI director Tyler Hatcher, computer security specialist Mr Ahmed stole millions of dollars. He was nabbed by the IRS’s Cyber Crimes Unit. We’ll catch these criminals with HSI and the DOJ.
New reports say Shakeeb Ahmed worked for Amazon, although officials dubbed him a “former security engineer” for a foreign technology company.
Since November 2020, Ahmed has been listed as an Amazon “Senior Security Engineer” on LinkedIn. The profile was not related to the jailed person.
A representative from Amazon told a news source that Ahmed had left the company. His role as a tech giant was kept secret.
This new event shows how serious the charges against the former senior security engineer are and how bad the punishments he could get are. The case shows how important it is to keep the bitcoin business safe and stop fraud.
Read also: How to spot crypto account impersonators on Threads
How did Shakeeb Ahmed do it?
Shakeeb Ahmed is accused of using his specialized abilities in reverse engineering smart contracts and performing blockchain audits to carry out a swindling scheme. Shakeeb Ahmed was a senior security engineer for an international technology company at the time of the attack.
Ahmed took advantage of a flaw in one of the Crypto Exchange’s smart contracts to make two fake tick accounts that looked like real ones on the site. By changing the smart contract, he made it create fees that were about $9 million more than they should have been.
Shakeeb Ahmed also used one of the fake tick accounts to make millions of dollars in inflated fees, such as flash loans, based on the fake price data he gave. He also used the other fake Tick account to take out cryptocurrency worth millions of dollars. This dishonest behaviour ripped off both the Crypto Exchange and its users, from whom Ahmed got the stolen cryptocurrency without their permission.
After the theft, Shakeeb Ahmed talked to the Crypto Exchange and offered to return all of the stolen money, except for $1.5 million, as long as the Crypto Exchange didn’t tell the police about the attack.
Ahmed’s internet actions after the attack showed that he was trying to get information, figure out his legal situation, look into ways to avoid criminal charges, keep the stolen cryptocurrency, and leave the United States.
In this case, about two days after the attack, Ahmed searched for “defi hack,” read many news stories about the Crypto Exchange hack, and went to several pages on the Crypto Exchange website. Ahmed also looked up words like “wire fraud” and “evidence laundering” on the internet and went to websites that had to do with the charges in the indictment.
Shakeeb Ahmed also did searches like “Can I cross the border with crypto?” “How to stop the federal government from seizing assets?” and “Buying citizenship” to find out how to avoid extradition and protect his stolen cryptocurrency. Notably, he went to a site called “16 Countries Where Your Investments Can Buy Citizenship.”
Situation Reports on the engineer
Inner City Press reported that when Shakeeb Ahmed went to court to be charged, he wore flip-flops, shorts and a T-shirt with the words “I code” on it. Since then, he has been freed on parole.