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$25 Million in Crypto Allegedly Stolen by 2 Brothers in 12 Seconds
“This alleged scheme was new and had never been charged before,” Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday. File photo by John Angelillo/UPI
May 15 (UPI) — The Department of Justice revealed Wednesday that it has indicted two brothers in their twenties on a series of alleged crimes for manipulating the cryptocurrency market to steal $25 million worth of cryptocurrencies over a period of 12 years. seconds, according to reports.
Anton Peraire-Bueno, 24, of Boston, Massachusetts, and his brother James Peraire-Bueno, 28, of New York were arrested Monday in their respective cities and are being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering,
“This alleged scheme was new and had never been charged before,” said Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. in a news release.
The Peraire-Bueno brothers will appear Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson for the District of Massachusetts and U.S. Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo for the Southern District of New York in New York.
If convicted, the brothers individually face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each criminal charge.
“As alleged in today’s indictment, the Peraire-Bueno brothers stole $25 million in Ethereum cryptocurrency through a cutting-edge, technologically sophisticated scheme that they planned for months and executed in seconds,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a press release.
The Justice Department alleges that the Peraire-Bueno brothers “meticulously” planned their “exploitation” over several months. O accusation says His alleged crimes began in December 2022 and continued until this month with a series of executed financial transactions.
Monaco indicated that Federal Revenue agents were instrumental in unraveling the “pioneering scheme of electronic fraud and money laundering” allegedly committed by the brothers.
Williams says his alleged crimes “call into question the very integrity of the blockchain.”
According to the Department of Justice, the brothers studied computer science and mathematics “at one of the most prestigious universities in the world.” The internet links one of them to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The federal government alleges that the two “used their specialized skills and education to tamper with and manipulate the protocols that millions of Ethereum users around the world trust. And once they put their plan into action, the robbery took just 12 seconds to complete. “
Among other things, the DOJ says they took the time to learn the trading behaviors of the victim traders whose cryptocurrencies they allegedly stole, and “took numerous steps” to conceal their identities and “lay the groundwork for concealing the stolen proceeds,” which The government’s disputes included the creation of shell companies and the use of multiple private cryptocurrency addresses and foreign cryptocurrency exchanges.
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The indictment requested that a number of JP Morgan Chase and Choice Bank accounts in their names be seized along with other personal property. The federal government claims the two performed a series of financial translations designed to hide not only their identities, but also the actual ownership of the stolen funds.
But investigators discovered that both brothers had a digital search history consistent with their alleged crimes, including American lawyers and extradition policies.