Indian Crypto Exchange BitBNS Says Law Enforcement Advised Against Making Hack Public

On the advice of law enforcement, Indian crypto exchange BitBNS didn't reveal a $7.5 million hack that occurred in February 2022 to its users and instead told them the attack was "system maintenance," BitBNS CEO Gaurav Dahake said during a discussion on YouTube.

"We immediately contacted law enforcement and have even managed to trace the person behind the hack," Dahake said.

Later, in a separate interview with CoinDesk, Dahake said "Cyber Crime Bengaluru is the agency that is conducting the investigation which is still currently on."

CoinDesk was not able to independently verify the claim with law enforcement.

The hack was first uncovered and made public by prominent pseudonymous crypto sleuth ZachXBT, with a tweet on Wednesday asking his followers to "call out the crypto exchange" for hiding the incident from users.

"Law enforcement advised us that the users should be educated about the incident only after the investigation is completed or reaches a dead end," Dahake said, adding that some funds were recovered with the help of authorities and other exchanges.

Dahake invited others to help with the case and said he had "sort of spoke" with ZachXBT in the interest of trying "to weed out the bad actors."

Read More: Crypto Sleuth ZachXBT’s Efforts Lead to Prosecution of Alleged Bored Ape NFT Scammers

UPDATE (Mar. 3, 05:56 UTC): Adds quote of BitBNS CEO Gaurav Dahake.