• Mark Shin of Colorado has been charged with theft, cybercrime and money laundering for allegedly stealing $9 million in crypto funds.
• Prosecutors allege that Shin took advantage of an „unintended vulnerability“ to mint unauthorized ICX from his home computer.
• Defense attorney Chris Decker argues that Shin was not engaging in thievery but rather saw a “golden opportunity” and chose to take advantage.
Mark Shin of Colorado Charged with Massive Crypto Theft
A man in Aurora, Colorado has been accused of stealing roughly $9 million in crypto funds. 31-year-old Mark Shin has been charged with theft , cybercrime, and money laundering at the time of writing for allegedly taking part in a scheme back in April of 2020 through his home computer.
Unintended Vulnerability Exploited
Shin is believed to have noticed an “unintended vulnerability in the revision 9 update” of the ICON Nation cryptocurrency. Instead of reporting this to ICON Foundation/Nation, court documents allege that Shin took part in a scheme that ultimately drained the network and made him an instant digital millionaire. The documents state: Shin changed the vote/select delegate function 558 times over an 11-hour period to mint unauthorized ICX. From his personal computer, Shin minted and stole from the ICON Nation approximately 13,924,045 unauthorized ICX, which was roughly the equivalent of approximately $8,988,406.00 U.S. dollars at the time of the attack.
Defense Argument
Chris Decker, a defense attorney, issued the following statement regarding his feelings on the case: He argued that Mr. Shin utilized code written by this cryptocurrency to create his own mint or mint his own currency – meaning he wasn’t taking property from another but instead creating new currency – hence why he felt it was not thievery but rather taking advantage of an opportunity presented by code written by someone else as well as exploiting a vulnerability on their behalf without their knowledge or consent.
Legal Analyst’s Opinion
George Brachler – legal analyst and former 18th Judicial District attorney – said this case is baffling and nothing like what he’s ever seen in nearly 30 years of serving the law however he did not believe Shin’s argument would be successful due to how much efforts had gone into trying to disguise who owned what amount after transferring money into other crypto wallets afterwards with suspicions starting immediately upon such movements being detected sooner than later .
Prosecutors‘ Claim
Prosecutors are claiming that Shin used a spinning service called Tornado Cash to move all the money into other wallets so as to avoid detection as it is linked to various exchanges across multiple geographical locations where he could potentially transfer funds out too without being identified .