Crypto Crime City Philippines’ Coins.ph exchange suffers breach by two Russian hackers

Two Russian men, Vladimir Avdeev and Sergey Yaschuck, are facing charges for allegedly stealing nearly $6 million in XRP from Coins.ph, a Philippines-based cryptocurrency exchange.

Criminals exploit insider knowledge

Investigators from the Philippines’ Department of Justice (DOJ) claim that Avdeev and Yaschuck, former consultants at Betur, used insider knowledge to breach Coins.ph’s network. The hack, which occurred last October, resulted in the theft of over 12 million XRP coins.

A detailed investigation by Coins.ph revealed that the hackers had a comprehensive understanding of the platform’s infrastructure and server systems, aiding their criminal activities.

Criminals trade across multiple platforms

Prosecutors state that the duo attempted to obscure their tracks by trading the stolen XRP across multiple platforms, including OKX, WhiteBIT, SimpleSwap, and Fixed Float. WhiteBIT confirmed blocking 445,000 stolen XRP tokens at the request of Coins.ph.

Further investigations revealed that the hackers utilised the OrbitBridge cross-chain protocol to convert some of the stolen cryptocurrency into different assets. They also attempted to move the funds to non-custodial exchanges, making recovery efforts more challenging.

Crypto Remittance Platform

Coins.ph is primarily used by citizens for crypto-powered remittances. As of July 15, XRP constituted nearly 11% of the exchange's total trading volume, according to CoinGecko data.