The alleged mastermind behind the pump.enjoyable exploit of the Solana memecoin protocol has been arrested in London.
In accordance with Blockworks, citing sources accustomed to the operation, British authorities arrested Jarett Dunn, a former contractor recognized on-line as @STACCoverflow, within the early hours of Might 18.
The arrest is claimed to have come after a painstaking 26-hour intelligence operation initiated by a 3rd celebration that employed a non-public intelligence company. The operation used social media posts and different publicly accessible data to find out Dunn’s whereabouts in London.
Native officers, or ‘auxiliary officers’, had been reportedly deployed in a large search which ultimately led them to the Center Eight Lodge in Covent Backyard. Dunn was present in a room on the resort and brought into custody seven hours later.
Apparently, the timing of his arrest coincided along with his final social media publish on ) and his actual identify, Jarett.
After his arrest, Dunn was launched on bail, based on his personal publish on X and affirmation from the intelligence agency.
He’s anticipated to stay in Britain till his courtroom look, which is anticipated to happen in August.
The pump.enjoyable platform, which simplifies the launch of tokens on the Solana (SOL) community, was exploited on Might 16, leading to a lack of greater than 12,300 SOL, valued at round $2 million on the time.
The attacker used flash loans from Raydium, a Solana lending protocol, to carry out the exploit. Payday loans are decentralized finance (defi) devices that permit customers to borrow giant quantities of capital.
On this case, the attacker manipulated the pump.enjoyable bonding curves, a mechanism that units symbolic costs primarily based on provide.
By reaching 100% on these curves, the hacker accessed the liquidity supposed for Raydium and subsequently repaid the flash mortgage, making vital income.
After the incident, pump.enjoyable started working with police to analyze the breach.
Igor Igamberdiev, head of analysis at cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute, was among the many first to recommend that an inner personal key leak could have facilitated the hack. Subsequently, Dunn, beneath the alias @STACCoverflow, admitted his function within the exploit by posting a sequence of erratic tweets during which he expressed a want to “change the course of historical past” and brazenly expressed his psychological well being points and grief over the demise of his mom mentioned.
He additionally claimed that the stolen cash can be distributed among the many holders of varied Solana tokens.
Dunn’s messages indicated that not less than seven folks had been entitled to those payouts, though he didn’t present particulars on the distribution course of or deadlines.
His messages additionally steered there was a motive primarily based extra on emotional misery than monetary achieve.
