French authorities arrest duo in connection with Holograph’s $14.4 million hack

Investigations into a multimillion-dollar hack on omnichain tokenization platform Holograph have begun to yield results, with French authorities arresting two individuals believed to be involved in the attack.

According to a tweet from the official Holograph X account, the Italian Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate, in collaboration with multiple law enforcement agencies including Europol, the French Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime, and the Paris Investigation and Intervention Brigade, has arrested suspects linked to the Holograph hack. Assets and electronics were seized during the arrests.

The Holograph Hack

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

On-chain analysts found data suggesting a rogue developer carried out the attack after preparing for it about a month in advance. The wallet address that received the minted supply was funded 26 days prior to the exploit.

The Holograph team quickly alerted law enforcement authorities and the investigation is still ongoing.

Law enforcement and cyber investigators have traced the attacks to two men in their 30s living 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 released based on instructions from French authorities and for the sake of further investigation.

“The broader investigation is still very fluid – the team will share more information regarding the recovery of assets for the Holograph ecosystem as proceedings develop,” the protocol added.

HLG rises 62%

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

While HLG’s market cap currently stands at under $3.44 million, the token has reacted to the news of the arrests, rising 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.