- ZachXBT ties a suspected $133M theft to French cooperative bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa.
- The alleged attacker swapped stablecoins for ETH and Monero across several exchanges.
- The bank has not confirmed the incident, which follows Binance’s $6.3 billion hack.
On-chain investigator ZachXBT says French banking group Crédit Mutuel Arkéa suffered losses exceeding $133 million in a suspected cryptocurrency theft involving withdrawals from centralized exchange accounts.
The bank has not publicly confirmed the incident, so for now this remains an alleged exploit built on blockchain tracing and media reports.
What Happened in the $133 Million Crédit Mutuel Arkéa Exploit?
On November 2, ZachXBT flagged more than $106 million in USDC and USDT withdrawals from several centralized exchange accounts tied to an unnamed EU entity. A day later, he traced another $27 million, which pushed the estimate past $133 million, and pointed to a large Western European financial institution. He then named Crédit Mutuel Arkéa.
The group holds roughly $235 billion in assets, serves more than 5.6 million customers and runs about 40 subsidiaries, including online bank Fortuneo.
According to reports, the attackers may have first diverted fiat money through a network of money-mule bank accounts before buying crypto.
In that scenario, the crypto trail served as a laundering route, and the reporting does not show the bank losing digital assets directly. How the attackers gained access is still unknown.
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How the Alleged Attacker Moved the Money
Bitquery traced withdrawals from Kraken, Crypto.com, and OKX. Roughly $62.98 million in stablecoins became 27,553 ETH within about four hours, a quick exit from tokens that issuers like Circle and Tether can freeze.
From there, ZachXBT says funds passed through instant exchanges such as WellWallet and Kyrrex, hopped across chains, and partly ended up in Monero.
He claims more than $30 million was laundered because of a lack of timely disclosure, and that an earlier alert to European law enforcement might have frozen part of it.
ZachXBT also said he is highly confident the attacker has no link to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has not responded to these claims publicly.
Crédit Mutuel Arkéa Case Adds to a Brutal Stretch of Crypto Hack Losses
The allegations land days after Binance suffered a $6.3 billion hack on October 29. The FBI attributed it to North Korean hackers who compromised employee computers through a fake job interview.
Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin was also hit for about $40 million. Nominis counted roughly $6.43 billion in losses across 38 major incidents in October, more than eight times September’s total.
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Related: Binance Buys Back Stolen Crypto Through OTC Deals: But Can It Regain User Trust?
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