Four months after the Rs 2000 crore hack of WazirX crypto exchange, Delhi Police arrested a man from West Bengal state of India for his alleged involvement in the hack. According to police, the accused SK Masud Alam was a WazirX user, who acted as a mule for the hacker and sold his account credentials for the breach.
On Saturday, the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit submitted a chargesheet at the Patiala High Court (Delhi) in relation to a police complaint filed against the anonymous hacker of WazirX exchange.
In their 918 pages long chargesheet, Delhi Police has incriminated the accused SK Masud Alam for conspiring with the hacker to steal $234.9 Million worth of cryptocurrencies from a multi-signature cold wallet of WazirX. The charge sheet has mentioned that Alam allegedly carried transactions worth lakhs of rupees in just 2 weeks after setting up a fake account on WazirX and it didn’t turn up at the radar of exchange management.
The Crypto Times got an exclusive sneak peek into the Delhi Police charge sheet and through this article, we are attempting to piece together the profile of the Trojan horse who led the hacker to WazirX user interface in order to commit the hack on July 18.
Who is SK Masud Alam?
According to Delhi Police charge sheet, the accused SK Masud Alam is a resident of Dhekua village in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal and he was operating a WazirX account under the name of Souvik Mandal, which was registered in July this year, just weeks ahead of the hack on July 18. Police said that while Alam had created the account under the name of Mandal, he used his own phone number for registration, which helped investigating officers to nab him.
According to police, SK Masud Alam got in touch with the alleged hacker on Telegram who identified themselves as “M Hasan”. Alam allegedly sold his WazirX credentials to M Hasan via Telegram messenger for a nominal amount.
“Relevant chats with M Hasan was also recovered in the mobile phone of accused SK Masud Alam. Hence, accused is part of the conspiracy and offence of present case was initiated from the WazirX account opened and sold by the accused,” read the chargesheet by Delhi Police.
Masud Alam has been booked under sections of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (Indian Penal Code) 318(4) for cheating, 61(2) for criminal conspiracy and 3(5) for criminal act with common intention and sections of the Information Technology Act.
SK Masud Alam Traded on WazirX with Lakhs of Money: Delhi Police
According to Delhi Police, the accused SK Masud Alam through the alias of Souvik Mandal, received crypto deposit worth Rs 91.17 lakh in his WazirX account, after he had sold his credentials to the hacker. Police also said that Alam did trading on WazirX exchange by first purchasing crypto worth Rs 54.37 lakh and then selling crypto worth Rs 58.37 lakh and then withdrew Rs 78 lakh from Mandal’s wallet to several wallet addresses. These activities were carried out at the exchange in just 14 days of him setting up his account on WazirX.
“It remains to be seen whether WazirX exchange management did any enhanced due diligence (EDD) on this particular WazirX account which was conducting trading on such massive volumes of money in just 2 weeks of registration. Moreover, a fake name was used to complete the KYC process at WazirX. The exchange is VDA approved and has claimed several times of conducting EDD on large transactions above Rs 25 lakh. A basic compliance of EDD on this particular mule could have prevented the hack,” said an industry insider privy to the chargesheet details.
Also Read: No cleanchit to WazirX & Liminal in WazirX Hack: Delhi Police Chargesheet
