French authorities arrest two in connection with $14.4 million holographic hack

The investigation into the multi-million dollar hack of Omnichain tokenization platform Holograph is starting to yield results, with French authorities arresting two people who may have been involved in the attack.

According to a tweet from the official Holograph X account, the Italian Mafia Investigative Agency, in cooperation with several law enforcement agencies including Europol, the French Cybercrime Prevention Agency, and the Paris Search and Intervention Brigade, arrested suspects in connection with the Holograph hack and seized assets and electronics as part of the arrests.

Hacking the holograph

On June 13, cybercriminals exploited a vulnerability in the Holograph operator contract to mint 1 billion HLG tokens worth $14.4 million. HLG is the protocol’s native token. Within hours of the attack, the hackers converted the stolen assets into Tether (USDT) and stole stablecoins.

On-chain analysts have uncovered data suggesting that the fraudulent developers prepared and executed the attack approximately a month in advance. The wallet address that received the minted supply was funded 26 days before the exploit.

The Holograph Team immediately reported the incident to law enforcement, and the investigation is ongoing.

Law enforcement and cyber investigators have tracked down two men in their 30s living in Italy as the perpetrators of the attack. They were arrested on August 9 and detained and are expected to be extradited to France for prosecution. Holograph said their names cannot be released pending further investigation and instructions from French authorities.

“The broader investigation remains very fluid. The team will share more information about the recovery of assets in the Holograph ecosystem as the process progresses,” the protocol added.

HLG surges 62%

The holographic attack took a toll on the value of HLG, with the token dropping 80% from $0.014 to $0.0029 in less than 10 hours. The token’s market cap plummeted from $22 million to $4.8 million, while the value of the stolen cache fell from $14.4 million to $7 million.

HLG currently has a market cap of just under $3.44 million, but the token has surged 62% in response to the news of the arrest, from $0.0016 to $0.0026. At the time of writing, HLG is hovering around $0.0024, up 41% in the last 24 hours.