French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa named in $133m crypto theft
Why it matters
Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has confirmed an attack that let fraudulent transactions through, after investigator ZachXBT named the French bank as the suspected victim of a $133m crypto theft. Banks moving into crypto take on its security risks too.
The short version
French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa confirmed on Wednesday that an attack had enabled fraudulent transactions, after on-chain investigator ZachXBT named it as the suspected victim of a crypto theft of more than $133m. The bank did not give an amount, said the incident is under control and said clients face no financial consequences.
Here's what happened. On Wednesday, the on-chain investigator ZachXBT named Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, a French bank, as the suspected victim of a crypto theft worth more than $133m. He first flagged the theft on Monday at over $106m, then found a further $27m in withdrawals from exchanges.
The bank confirmed the attack to CoinDesk. It said fraudulent transactions had gone through but the situation was now under control, and that clients face no financial consequences. It paused some transactions and told the authorities. It did not say how much was taken, or whether it was cash or crypto.
The analytics firm Bitquery traced $108.8m in USDC, a dollar stablecoin, withdrawn from accounts at Kraken, Crypto.com and OKX over 21 hours on 1 and 2 November. It could not confirm the full $133m or name the victim. Crypto.com said it had blocked linked funds, and OKX said it froze an institutional customer's account.
ZachXBT said he was highly confident North Korea's Lazarus Group was not behind it. In May, French outlet L'Agefi reported that the bank had applied for a MiCA licence, the EU's crypto permit.
Where this comes from
Written with AI from the sources above and checked against them before publishing. Here's how we work. This is news, not financial advice. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.