By Nate Raymond <\/p>\n
BOSTON (Reuters) - Two brothers who studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were arrested on Wednesday on U.S. charges that they carried out a cutting-edge scheme to exploit the Ethereum blockchain's integrity and steal $25 million worth of cryptocurrency. <\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan called the scheme perpetrated by Anton Peraire-Bueno, 24, and James Peraire-Bueno, 28, \"novel\" and said the case marked the first time that such a fraud had ever been the subject of U.S. criminal charges. <\/p>\n
Authorities said they executed their elaborate heist in April 2023, stealing $25 million from traders in just 12 seconds by fraudulently gaining access to pending transactions and altering the movement of cryptocurrency. <\/p>\n
\"As we allege, the defendants' scheme calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question,\" U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. <\/p>\n
An indictment charged them with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Anton Peraire-Bueno was arrested in Boston, while James Peraire-Bueno was arrested in New York. <\/p>\n
Their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n
Both brothers had attended Cambridge, Massachusetts-based MIT, where according to prosecutors they studied computer science and math and developed the skills and education they relied upon to carry out their fraud. <\/p>\n
The indictment alleged that for months, the Peraire-Bueno brothers plotted to manipulate and tamper with the protocols used to validate transactions for inclusion on the Ethereum blockchain, a public ledger that records each cryptocurrency transaction. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors said they did so by exploiting a vulnerability in the code of software called MEV-boost that is used by most Ethereum network \"validators,\" who are responsible for checking that new transactions are valid before they are added to the blockchain. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors said that after carrying out the heist, the brothers rejected requests to return the funds and instead took steps to launder and hide the stolen cryptocurrency. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot) <\/p>\n
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\nUS charges two brothers with novel $25 million cryptocurrency heist - AOL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"