London’s High Court is ordering major crypto exchange Binance to track down and freeze the accounts of crypto hackers behind an alleged $2.6-million security breach.
The order, which was made public last week, grants the requests by artificial intelligence (AI) company Fetch.ai for Binance to find and freeze the allegedly stolen assets.
Fetch.ai claims that on June 6th hackers obtained access to its Binance accounts that held several crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Tether (USDT) and its own Fetch.ai (FET) token among others.
The hackers allegedly traded the stolen cryptocurrencies at a massive discount to a third party.
Judge Pelling QC describes the order in a transcript of the court proceedings.
“A worldwide freezing order is sought against those who were knowingly involved in the fraud for the purposes of freezing their assets worldwide, in order to ensure to the best that can be achieved that the claimant is able to freeze assets, which will enable any judgment of the court to have real effect.”
Syedur Rahman, a partner at the Rahman Ravelli law firm that represents Fetch.ai, tells Reuters that the missing assets are recoverable.
“We need to dispel the myth that crypto assets are anonymous. The reality is that with the right rules and applications they can be tracked, traced and recovered.”
A Binance spokesperson says that the exchange is helping to recover the stolen assets.
“Binance routinely freezes accounts that are identified as having suspicious activity occurring in line with our security policies and commitment to ensuring that users are protected while using our platform.”
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