Indian police have arrested an employee of the crypto exchange CoinDCX in connection with a $44 million cryptocurrency theft, but authorities admit they face an “impossible” challenge in tracing the stolen digital funds due to the unregulated nature of the crypto landscape.
Police revealed on July 30 that hackers installed malware on a company laptop used by Rahul Agarwal, a CoinDCX employee from Jharkhand, who had worked with the firm for three years. The hackers allegedly lured Agarwal with a deceptive offer of a part-time job.
According to a police complaint filed July 22 by Hardeep Singh, Vice-President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for Neblio Technologies, the company’s wallet was breached around 2:37 a.m. on July 19, with a substantial amount of cryptocurrency transferred to six different accounts.
As reported by Bitcoin.com News, CoinDCX lost digital funds after hackers breached one of its operational wallets on Solana. However, CEO Sumit Gupta insisted at the time that wallets storing users’ funds were not impacted by the breach. He revealed that CoinDCX was collaborating with other centralized exchanges to recover the funds.
Meanwhile, a police officer quoted by a local report explained that Agarwal, who held a significant position, was tasked with writing reviews and other online assignments for payment. While he initially used his personal laptop, he later switched to his office device. It was on this company laptop that the hackers surreptitiously installed malware, gaining unauthorized access to CoinDCX and diverting funds.
“Agarwal was totally in the dark about the theft that has happened by hacking into his laptop,” a police officer stated. “It was late for him to realize that he was used as a tool to siphon such a huge amount of cryptocurrency.”
Internal investigations revealed Agarwal had earned approximately $17,235, which he attributed to his part-time work when confronted by the company. However, police are now grappling with a significant obstacle: establishing a money trail.
“If it was a bank transfer, we could find a money trail. But it seems to be impossible as the origins of the wallets (to which the cryptocurrency was transferred) is also not from India,” the officer admitted, underscoring the severe challenges posed by the lack of cryptocurrency regulation, both domestically and globally. “If the crypto exchanges failed to share the data of the wallets, it would be a tough task.”
The Whitefield CEN police have registered a case under various sections of the Information Technology Act (66, 43, 66(c), 66(d)) and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (303, 316(4), 318(4), 319(2)). However, the focus remains on the immense difficulty of tracking the digital assets once they leave regulated financial channels.
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