u.today
According to a report published by Nikkei Asia, about 30 individuals that were part of illicit transactions linked to the $530 million Coincheck hack have been nabbed by Japanese police.
As reported by U.Today, Takayoshi Doi and Masaki Kitamoto, the two men who masterminded the high-profile heist, got arrested back in March 2020.
Tokyo-based Coincheck suffered a massive breach back in January 2018, losing 523 million NEM (XEM) tokens kept in its hot wallet.
In March 2018, it delivered hefty cash compensation totaling $435 million to its affected customers.
Tainted tokens
The bad actors were identified by tracing the trail of their ill-gotten crypto that was reportedly offered on the dark web at a 15 percent discount.
Since NEM tagged all stolen XEM tokens as tainted, it was very challenging to convert them into Bitcoin or fiat currencies without being noticed.