{"id":33759,"date":"2020-12-22T09:59:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T07:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=33759"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:28:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T12:28:05","slug":"bitgrail-owner-suspected-of-hacking-his-own-bitcoin-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/bitgrail-owner-suspected-of-hacking-his-own-bitcoin-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"BitGrail owner suspected of hacking his own Bitcoin exchange"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The founder of the BitGrail cryptocurrency exchange, Francesco Firano, has become a suspect in the case of the 2018 hack of the platform and the theft of \u20ac120 million. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/italy-cyber-cryptocurrency\/italian-police-accuse-cryptocurrency-exchange-boss-of-huge-fraud-idUSL8N2J127X\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Reuters<\/a> reports citing Italian police.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to the investigation, Firano was involved in a series of attacks on his own exchange. He is suspected of fraud, fictitious bankruptcy, and money laundering.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;It is not yet clear whether he played an active role in the theft or simply chose not to improve security measures after discovering it,&#8221; said Ivano Gabrielli, director of the National Cybercrime Center.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The police noted that preventing a repeat breach of BitGrail would not have been difficult, but Firano &#8220;consciously did not do this.&#8221; The agency regards the attack on the exchange as the largest in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2018, the trading platform reported the loss of 17 million XRB (Nano \/ RaiBlocks). At that time, the damage amounted to $170 million.<\/p>\n<p>In May of the same year, a court ordered the exchange to halt operations. A month later, authorities seized bitcoins from BitGrail wallets.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in January 2019, the platform and its owner were declared bankrupt and ordered to return to clients the maximum possible amount of the lost $170 million.<\/p>\n<p>Follow ForkLog news on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BitGrail founder Francesco Firano has become a suspect in the 2018 hack of the platform and the \u20ac120 million theft, Reuters reports citing Italian police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2073,1154],"class_list":["post-33759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitgrail","tag-crimes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"40","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33761,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33759\/revisions\/33761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}