ZachXBT Identifies Crédit Mutuel Arkéa as Source of $133 Million Crypto Outflow
Written with artificial intelligence.
On November 4, on-chain investigator ZachXBT reported that Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, a French banking group, is linked to a cryptocurrency outflow exceeding $133 million. However, no official confirmation from the bank or authorities has been made regarding the incident.
Investigation Findings
On November 4, ZachXBT identified Crédit Mutuel Arkéa as the financial institution affected by a cryptocurrency outflow exceeding 13.3 million USD (over 20.4 billion JPY). The exact nature of the incident remains unconfirmed by the bank or any regulatory authorities.
Prior to this identification, ZachXBT reported that a business entity located in the EU lost more than 10.6 million USD on November 1, allegedly from multiple centralized exchange accounts. Following this, on November 3, an additional outflow of over 27 million USD was detected, raising the total estimated loss to over 13.3 million USD.
Fund Movement
ZachXBT noted that the funds were converted into Ethereum and Monero before being transferred. The suspected attacker reportedly withdrew funds using stablecoins USDC and USDT, then exchanged these for Ethereum and Monero, transferring them across several blockchains. Interestingly, ZachXBT mentioned that this method of operation does not align with typical tactics employed by the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacker collective.
Bank Profile and Implications
Crédit Mutuel Arkéa is a significant banking group with total assets of approximately 235 billion USD. According to analysis by Bitquery, around 62.98 million USD of the outflow was converted to ETH within a span of four hours. ZachXBT also criticized the lack of proper disclosure regarding the incident, claiming that over 30 million USD may have been laundered as a result, leading to a missed opportunity for EU investigative authorities to freeze the funds.