{
  "id": 17936430,
  "title": "Suspected EU crypto theft estimate rises to $133M: ZachXBT",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/03/suspected-eu-crypto-theft-estimate-rises-to-133m-zachxbt",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-11-03T08:18:22.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Cointelegraph",
    "slug": "cointelegraph",
    "url": "https://cointelegraph.com/news/zachxbt-eu-crypto-theft-133m-alleged-cover-up"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has significantly raised his estimate of a suspected crypto theft originating from an unidentified European Union entity to over $133 million. On Tuesday, he disclosed an additional $27 million in withdrawals from centralized exchanges, elevating the estimated losses from the initial $106 million reported on Monday. ZachXBT postulated that a prominent financial institution in Western Europe might have been targeted and is attempting to conceal the incident. He also highlighted that the absence of a proper incident disclosure allowed more than $30 million to be laundered, which could have been frozen by EU law enforcement. The true identity of the victim and allegations of a cover-up have yet to be confirmed. According to Bitquery, $62.98 million in stablecoins was converted into 27,553 Ether (ETH) within approximately four hours. As of Monday, around $78.3 million remained in wallets connected to the suspected attacker, while $30.5 million had been transferred out of the tracked addresses. A mere $3.74 million in USDC remained, which Circle—the stablecoin issuer—could potentially freeze. ZachXBT earlier reported that the attacker was transferring funds into ETH and Monero (XMR) via instant exchanges and cross-chain bridges, noting that the laundering patterns did not align with those typically employed by North Korea’s Lazarus Group.",
  "summary": "ZachXBT identified another $27 million in exchange withdrawals, some of which occurred after he first flagged the suspected crypto theft.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}