Two Suspects Connected to the Bitfinex Hacking Attack have been Arrested in Israel

In the latest turn of events, on 23 June two Israeli brothers, who were suspected to have connections to the Bitfinex hacking attack, were arrested. According to the report, the two men hailed from Jerusalem and were arrested by the Cyber Crime unit of the Israeli police.

The shocking fact that the news revealed about the identity of these men was that the elder brother is a graduate of an elite technological unit of the Israeli Defence Force. The unit recruits young people with exemplary academic credentials, and it was here that he received training to hack into systems of large institutions.

They had also allegedly used a phishing scheme to orchestrate the crimes. The brothers, Eli and Assaf Gigi were allegedly setting up new websites mimicking the prominent crypto exchanges to steal the user details of traders. Through this scheme, the report stated, the police had let the publication know that the stolen fund amounts to tens of millions of dollars if not a 100 million as had been published by an Israeli news portal.

The Bitfinex Connection

The men were being suspected of having some connection with the attack which hacked into the accounts of users of the prominent crypto exchange Bitfinex. As the victims are mostly EU and US citizens there have been multi-national cooperation for investigating the attack. The police have stated the accomplices of the crime from other countries have not been identified. Moreover, the police have not elaborated on the nature of their involvement in the crime.

Recovery Scheme

Bitfinex had initially used a loss socialization scheme which was criticized by many in the crypto community. The company, however, went on the process and issued the controversial BFX tokens. Moreover, according to reports of 2018, the US authorities have been able to access the stolen tokens and 27.7 Bitcoins have been returned.