The masterminds behind a $243 million cryptocurrency heist

A quiet honor
Veer Chetal, a recent graduate of Immaculate High School in Danbury, was about to begin his studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 2022, he completed the “Future Lawyers” program, and the story on the pure white website of the year showed a photo of a smiling child wearing glasses wearing a Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker over a Red Polo.

Classmates remember Cetal as a shy and car fan. “He’s staying on his own for a bit,” says Marcodias, who has become friends with Cethal Junior Year. According to another classmate named Nick Paris, this was true for Cetal up until the day in the middle of his fourth graders who appeared at school driving a Corvette. “He just parked a lot. It was 7:30am and everyone was like that. what?” Paris quickly rolled up with BMW, and then he began wearing Louis Vuitton shirts and Gucci shoes.

Chethal said he made a code to trade money. Diaz said Chethal showed him a phone transaction as proof one morning during his homeroom class. Once, Chethal rented a large house in Stamford, Connecticut, and held a three-day gathering with friends. “I was in the basement at some point. I was just messing around with my friends. I was looking at him like his cell phone, like he was, avoiding everyone at the party,” Diaz says. “And, oh, I thought it was a bit strange.” Paris remembers during a school parade, police stopped his Lamborghini Ursu Cetal for a traffic violation. “He literally called his lawyer out there before answering the police question. Everyone was. Wow, this guy is doing something for him.

Independent investigators say that Chetal is a secretly member of COM, an online network of chat groups with roots in the 1980s hacking underground, and an online network of chat groups that act as a social network for cybercrime or ambitious things. In an affidavit from an unrelated case, FBI agents described COM as “a geographically diverse group of individuals organized in various subgroups, all engaged in different types of criminal activity through online communications applications such as Discord and Telegram.” According to FBI affidavits and experts studying COM, activities of various subgroups include making false reports to agencies such as emergency services or schools to trigger police responses. Once the hacker takes over the target phone number, the Sim exchange is made by tricking the customer and service representative. Ransomware attacks using malware that deny users or organizers access to computer files. Cryptocurrency theft; and corporate intrusions.

Allison Nixon, chief research officer of Unit 221B, a group of cybersecurity experts, has been following this growing corner of the Internet since 2011 and is widely considered to be a distinguished expert at COM. She says that most COM members are young men from Western countries. In group chat, many people talk about universities and take cybersecurity classes. For many, the gateway is through video games such as Runescape, Roblox, and Grand Theft Auto.