A loophole was exploited three times, and Meerun stole 1.2 billion dollars from FTX
The great thief is simple...Author: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily
Last week, a lawsuit document from FTX revealed that a Mauritian citizen named Nawaaz Mohammad Meerun (hereinafter referred to as Meerun) extracted $1.2 billion from the FTX exchange and Alameda Research over the course of a year, yet never left any concrete evidence.
Debut: The Mysterious Whale Steals $450 Million
Meerun's first battle took place in January 2021, where he chose a token with extremely low liquidity, BTMX, as his first target. Over the course of two months, he continuously bought BTMX through the BitMax and FTX platforms, ultimately controlling about 50% of the total supply in the market. Driven by Meerun, the price of BTMX skyrocketed from $0.03 to $3, an increase of up to 10,000%.
Subsequently, Meerun exploited a loophole in FTX's margin trading system, using the inflated BTMX as collateral to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars. He then quickly withdrew the funds, transferring $450 million to multiple wallet addresses.
The lawsuit states: "Meerun was fully aware that once his manipulation ceased, the price of BTMX would collapse, and he would need to repay all 'borrowed' assets. But Meerun never intended to comply with FTX's rules."
Despite BitMax warning the FTX team about unusual trading, the FTX management did not take action. The FTX team locked his account but forgot to disable his withdrawal function. After Meerun cashed out, some employees even attempted to shift the loss onto Alameda Research to cover up the incident.
Alameda Becomes Meerun's ATM
After successfully manipulating BTMX, Meerun did not stop there. Instead, he turned to a different strategy—short selling. He targeted another obscure token, Mobile Coin (MOB).
Meerun first established a short position of about 10% of the total supply of MOB on FTX, which Alameda was then forced to take on. To cover the short position, Alameda purchased a large amount of the token.
The price of MOB soared 750% during Alameda's weeks of buying frenzy, rising from $8 to $68, with Alameda paying a significant premium. However, after Alameda slowed down its purchases, the price quickly plummeted. Ultimately, this trade resulted in a loss of about $1 billion for Alameda, while Meerun successfully cashed out once again.
In August 2021, Meerun allegedly used new accounts and aliases to implement a similar manipulation scheme with low liquidity tokens such as BAO, TOMO, and SXP, profiting nearly $200 million before FTX noticed.
KNC Incident: The Last Attempt, Failed (or Did It?)
After multiple successes, Meerun once again set his sights on the KNC token. He meticulously set up a complex account structure, using stolen or forged KYC materials, fake addresses, and non-existent postal codes to open FTX accounts. He also established 64 sub-accounts under a main account to circumvent FTX's collateral restrictions.
Next, he bought a large amount of another low liquidity token, KNC, simultaneously purchasing through multiple accounts to drive up the price, ultimately controlling about 70% of the circulating supply of KNC in the market. This artificially created a price increase, increasing the nominal value of the collateral. He then exploited a loophole in FTX's margin system to spread his KNC holdings across multiple sub-accounts, using the artificially inflated KNC as collateral to borrow funds, attempting to withdraw as much money as possible before the price collapsed. However, this time, a junior employee at FTX noticed the correlation in the flow of funds and identified the connection to previous operations. FTX promptly took account freezing measures and implemented new margin trading restrictions.
Afterward, FTX gradually began to realize Meerun's pattern, yet he still managed to withdraw $68 million.
Criminal Network and Behind-the-Scenes Suspicion
FTX's lawsuit documents not only accused Meerun of market manipulation but also linked him to organized crime groups in multiple countries. These allegations include:
- Connections to criminal networks in Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, involving human trafficking and money laundering.
- Associations with Islamic extremist groups, potentially involved in terrorism financing.
In the face of these accusations, Meerun has consistently denied them. He claims that his trading on FTX was entirely compliant with the rules and even emphasized that he suffered losses in the trades. He stated: "I have no connection to any organized crime networks and have never funded extremism or terrorist activities."
Interestingly, according to @LouisOrigny, Meerun submitted a claim for $12 million to FTX's bankruptcy creditors in 2024.
All I can say is, one fish, multiple meals; let me figure this out…
