The hacker who stole 200 million in cryptocurrencies gave an interview from a Paris prison

The cybercriminal behind the $ 200 million hack of Euler Finance’s DeFi platform has unexpectedly decided to tell the media about himself. Currently, 20-year-old Federico Jaime is in a French prison. The convict emphasized that he had indeed returned almost all the funds to the developers. It should be noted that the man was arrested at the Paris train station with a bag containing about € 200 thousand in cash.

The hacker was interviewed by DefiLllama journalists after Jaime voluntarily contacted the crypto media outlet.

Jaime said that he was accused of a «minor money laundering case». He stated that the cash he was carrying was the profit from his online IT business, and that he owned it jointly with his father. However, the man was also carrying part of a $ 2 million reward in cryptocurrency left to him by the Euler developers.

Jaime also said that he «completed about 20 projects before hitting the jackpot.» «I wanted to prove to myself that I could use something in DeFi as a hacker,» he said.

The cybercriminal allowed his real name and photo to be used. He stated that he wanted wide media publicity. In this way, Jaime aims to warn other young hackers against their mistakes. In his opinion, malicious actions can have a devastating impact on a person’s entire life.

DefiLllama representatives emphasized that they could not confirm the veracity of Jaime’s words and call him the main exploiter of Euler Finance. However, his words are confirmed by the criminal’s digital footprint and transactions made from his own crypto wallet during the exploit.

Euler Finance was hacked on March 13. As a result of the attack using flash credits, the attacker withdrew assets from the protocol, the value of which BlockSec analysts estimated at $ 200 million. In particular, the hacker stole over 85,800 ETH.

Interestingly, three days after the hack, Jaime suddenly returned 100 ETH to a random user. The ethereum owner had previously stated that he had lost all his savings as a result of the protocol exploit. Interestingly, the victim asked the cybercriminal to return only 75 ETH. However, the offender did something unexpected and sent the man 25 ETH more.