Canadian Hacker Steals $65M, Disappears From Custody — What Happened?
A 22-year-old Canadian crypto hacker who allegedly defrauded two DeFi protocols of $65 million has vanished from custody after being arrested in Serbia.
Andean Medjedovic, a Hamilton native with a grasp’s diploma in pure arithmetic earned at age 18, now faces costs in a number of jurisdictions, together with his whereabouts remaining unknown.
Medjedovic’s four-year evasion ended together with his August 2024 arrest in Belgrade, just for him to slide away once more from authorities pursuing extradition.
Math Genius Turned Criminal: The $65M Double Heist
Medjedovic’s alleged crimes started in October 2021 when he manipulated Indexed Finance’s index swimming pools utilizing borrowed cryptocurrencies, draining over $16.5 million from buyers.
The following yr, he conspired with an unnamed confederate to launder the stolen funds by fraudulent change accounts and crypto mixers.
His most brazen heist occurred in November 2023, when he allegedly exploited KyberSwap’s code to artificially manipulate costs within the protocol’s liquidity swimming pools.
“Medjedovic then calculated exact mixtures of trades that might trigger the KyberSwap AMM to ‘glitch,’ in his phrases, permitting him to steal tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in cryptocurrency from the liquidity swimming pools,” the United States Attorney’s Office states.
The Vietnam-based platform misplaced $48.8 million within the assault.
Shortly after the heist, the attacker sent a public message: “Negotiations will begin in just a few hours when I’m totally rested. Thank you.”
KyberSwap offered a typical 10 % bug bounty, however Medjedovic rejected it outright. Instead, he demanded full management of the Kyber platform and supplied to return simply 50 % to buyers.
According to CBC reports, Dutch authorities traced the hack to a lodge in The Hague, the place Medjedovic allegedly checked in utilizing a faux Slovak passport.
Two weeks after his flight departed Amsterdam for Kuwait through Istanbul in late November 2023, Dutch authorities issued a European arrest warrant, adopted by an Interpol Red Notice.
Court paperwork reveal Medjedovic spent these intervening years touring extensively.
He visited Brazil, Dubai, Spain, Bosnia, and Serbia whereas trying to keep up his lavish way of life on stolen crypto.
Arrested in Belgrade, Then Vanished — Where Is He Now?
Medjedovic’s run ended on August 9, 2024, when he arrived in Belgrade utilizing the alias “Lorenzo” to e-book an residence. Interpol Belgrade instantly contacted Dutch authorities upon his arrest.
During extradition proceedings on the Belgrade Higher Court, Medjedovic denied all accusations. “I don’t want to go to the Netherlands,” he said, including that “I want to have kids in Serbia and to attain some extra issues right here.”
He claimed he had been in Dubai for 4 months and had visited the Netherlands for 3 months “on a vacationer journey.” Despite being Canadian, Medjedovic informed the courtroom he holds solely a Bosnian passport.
The U.S. indictment revealed Medjedovic maintained detailed recordsdata documenting his schemes, together with one titled “cashMovementSystem” with step-by-step directions for laundering cryptocurrency by mixers.
He allegedly wrote notes to “make a brand new checking account underneath a faux ID” and “order paperwork on-line (Russian + Brazilian + American citizen).”
His Next Move: Return the Funds or Rot in Prison
As of publication, Medjedovic has disappeared from Serbian custody, and the stolen $65 million stays dormant in crypto wallets.
“He must be excellent from right here till eternity in obfuscating the proceeds of this exploit, that are being tracked,” said Kyle Armstrong, a former FBI agent at blockchain intelligence agency TRM Labs.
Ari Redbord, TRM’s world head of coverage, noted that fashionable digital monitoring makes extended evasion more and more tough.
“The actuality is that sooner or later you are available and also you fall in your sword and doubtlessly do all the things you possibly can to in the end assist the federal government,” he mentioned.
If Medjedovic refuses to cooperate by returning funds and taking accountability, he might face more than 10 years in prison.
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