Onchain investigator ZachXBT has identified French cooperative bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa as the alleged victim of a multi-day exploit that resulted in the theft of more than $133 million in crypto assets. The claims, which have not been confirmed by the bank or regulators, point to a sophisticated attack targeting multiple centralized exchange accounts and involving large-scale onchain laundering.
ZachXBT first reported on Nov. 2 that an unnamed European Union entity had lost over $106 million, with funds withdrawn as USDC and USDT. A day later, he raised the total to above $133 million after tracing an additional $27 million in withdrawals. Some of those outflows continued even after his initial disclosure. He said the illicit actor aggressively swapped USDC for ETH, transferred funds to instant exchanges such as WellWallet and Kyrrex, converted portions into Monero (XMR) via Wagyu Wallet, and bridged assets across multiple chains.
According to ZachXBT, some of the stolen funds were withdrawn from the Kraken hot wallet, while other transactions originated from accounts linked to Crypto.com and OKX. Kraken reportedly restricted wallets associated with the exploit, though the funds were not frozen. ZachXBT noted that more than $30 million had already been laundered, and criticized the institution for not disclosing the incident to EU law enforcement, which could have enabled asset freezes. He also assessed with a high degree of confidence that the attacker is not linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group, citing an unusual laundering pattern involving centralized exchanges.
Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, which has more than 5.6 million customers and approximately $235 billion in total assets, has not issued a public statement confirming or denying the incident. The bank's crypto exposure is believed to be a small part of its portfolio. The case has drawn attention to the response of stablecoin issuers, since the stolen USDC and USDT were not frozen, contrasting with faster action after previous exploits such as the Binance hack.
