French Authorities Arrest Duo in Connection to Holograph’s $14.4M Hack

Investigations into a multi-million dollar hack on the omnichain tokenization platform Holograph have begun to yield results. French authorities have arrested two individuals who may have been involved in the attack.

According to a tweet by the official Holograph X account, the Italian Directorate of Anti-Mafia Investigations, in collaboration with multiple enforcement agencies, including Europol, France’s Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime, and the Paris Search and Intervention Brigade, have apprehended suspects tied to the Holograph hack, confiscating assets and electronics as part of the arrests.

The Holograph Hack

On June 13, a cybercriminal exploited a vulnerability in the Holograph operator contract and minted 1 billion HLG tokens valued at $14.4 million. HLG is the protocol’s native token. Within hours after the attack, the hacker converted the stolen assets to Tether (USDT) and made away with the stablecoins.

On-chain analysts found data that suggested that a rogue developer had executed the attack after making preparations roughly a month in advance. The wallet address that received the minted supply was funded 26 days before the exploit.

The Holograph team quickly alerted law enforcement agencies, and investigations have been ongoing.

Law enforcement agencies and cyber investigators traced the attacks to two men in their thirties residing in Italy. They were arrested and detained on August 9 and will soon be extradited to France to face charges. Holograph said their names could not be publicized based on instructions from French authorities and for the sake of further investigations.

“The broader investigation is still very fluid — the team will share more information on asset recovery for the Holograph ecosystem as the proceedings develop,” the protocol added.

HLG Surges 62%

The Holograph attack took a toll on the value of HLG, as the token plunged 80% from $0.014 to a low of $0.0029 in less than ten hours. The token’s market cap slumped from $22 million to $4.8 million, and the value of the stolen stash reduced from $14.4 million to $7 million.

Although HLG’s market cap is currently below $3.44 million, the token has reacted to the news of the arrests, surging 62% from $0.0016 to $0.0026. At the time of writing, HLG was hovering around $0.0024, up 41% in the past 24 hours.