Italy’s authorities have arrested multiple individuals related to the June 13 Holograph hack, a major cybercrime incident involving the theft of $14.4 million worth of Holograph (HLG) tokens.
The Holograph protocol, which enables a single contract address across all EVM blockchains for consistent tokenization, interoperability, and secure cross-chain asset transfers, announced the news on its X page.
“As the investigation is still ongoing, the suspects names cannot be publicized yet according to French authorities. The broader investigation is still very fluid — the team will share more information on asset recovery for the Holograph ecosystem as the proceedings develop,” the protocol stated.
Further details on the investigation and the hack are expected as the case progresses, the team added.
Following the breach, Holograph launched an internal investigation with assistance from Halborn, which identified a “disgruntled former contractor” as being involved.
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The arrests follow a two-month investigation led by France’s Office for the Prevention of Cybercrime (OFAC) in collaboration with international law enforcement agencies, including the Brigade de Répression du Banditisme (BRI), Europol, the Italian Directorate of Anti-Mafia Investigations, and the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS).
The suspects, whose identities have not been disclosed, are expected to be extradited to France to face charges. Italian police have frozen assets and seized electronics as part of the ongoing investigation.
The hack targeted Holograph blockchain tokenization platform and involved a sophisticated attack on its operator contract, allowing the hacker to mint 1 billion HLG tokens. This caused the token’s value to plummet by nearly 80% within hours.
The 1 billion HLG tokens minted by the exploiter were valued at slightly more than $6.7 million. On-chain data suggests that the ENS wallet acc01ade.eth was involved in the exploit. This wallet appears to belong to a contributor to the project, based on information from a Github page and a corresponding X profile that describes the individual as a “super shadowy coder” based in Paris.
Holograph secured $3 million in its latest funding round in April, led by Mechanism Capital and Selini Capital, bringing its total funding to $11 million.
