Nirvana Finance Hacker Agrees to Pay Victims

It was announced on Thursday by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that Shakeeb Ahmed, a 34-year old senior security engineer, admitted to exploiting the Nirvana Finance protocol and another decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.

This led to him obtaining a total of $12.3 million, for which he has agreed to forfeit. Additionally, he will pay $5 million in restitution to his victims.

According to US Attorney Damian Williams, this is the first ever conviction for a hack on a smart contract, following Ahmed’s arrest in July on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

The indictment states that Ahmed took advantage of a vulnerability in the smart contract of a Solana-based exchange, believed to be Crema Finance.

After this initial hack, Ahmed carried out another attack on Nirvana Finance, using flash loans and an exploit he had found in their smart contracts to gain $3.6 million.