The Southern District of New York court found computer security engineer Shakib Ahmed guilty of hacking decentralized crypto exchanges Crypto Exchange and Nirvana and sentenced him to three years in prison.

As noted by US Attorney Damian Williams, the conviction of Shakeeb Ahmed was the first conviction for hacking a smart contract. In addition, Ahmed must pay $12.3 million and “significant amounts of cryptocurrencies,” as well as pay $5 million in damages to crypto exchanges.

As part of the Crypto Exchange hacking case, Ahmed must return all stolen funds, with the exception of $1.5 million. To obtain this money, the management of the hacked exchange must contact US law enforcement agencies. In the case of Nirvana, the site's management offered Ahmed $600,000 to return the stolen $3.6 million, but the hacker asked for $1.4 million. As a result, an agreement was never reached.

To hack the smart contracts of these exchanges, Shakib Ahmed used instant loans. Funds from the Solana blockchain were transferred to the Ethereum network and then converted into the Monero cryptocurrency.

Let us remember that Ahmed was accused of stealing $9 million in various cryptocurrencies back in July last year.