CoinDCX Employee Held in $44M Crypto Hack

Indian police have arrested Rahul Agarwal, an employee of cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX, in connection with a $44 million theft—but admit recovering the stolen assets may be nearly impossible due to the unregulated nature of crypto.

According to police, hackers breached one of CoinDCX’s operational wallets on the Solana blockchain on July 19, transferring funds to six different accounts. The breach, detected at 2:37 a.m., did not impact wallets holding customer funds, CEO Sumit Gupta confirmed. CoinDCX is working with other centralized exchanges to trace and recover the stolen assets.

Investigators allege Agarwal, a three-year employee from Jharkhand, was unknowingly compromised after accepting a deceptive part-time job offer. Initially working on his personal laptop, he later used his office device, where hackers installed malware to gain unauthorized access. Police say Agarwal was unaware his system was being used to siphon funds.

Internal probes found Agarwal earned about $17,235 from his side work. However, police stress that tracking the stolen cryptocurrency is challenging, especially since the recipient wallets are located outside India. Without cooperation from global exchanges, tracing the funds will be difficult.

The Whitefield CEN Police have registered charges under multiple sections of the IT Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, highlighting the urgent need for stronger crypto regulations.