Engineer Arrested for $9M Crypto Theft and NFT Fraud

The U.S. Department of Justice has arrested a security engineer, Shakeeb Ahmed, on charges of wire fraud and money laundering, accusing him of stealing $9 million worth of cryptocurrency from an unnamed decentralized exchange. Ahmed allegedly exploited a vulnerability in the exchange's smart contracts, creating fake pricing data to generate inflated fees that he then withdrew. He attempted to launder the funds by converting them into different cryptocurrencies and moving them across blockchains. While the DOJ did not name the exchange, the details align with last year's theft from Crema Finance, a Solana-based decentralized exchange. Ahmed offered to return most of the funds in exchange for not involving law enforcement.