Also: Samourai Wallet Founders Plead Guilty

Every week, Information Security Media Group rounds up cybersecurity incidents in digital assets. This week, WOO X investigated a $14M breach, Samourai Wallet founders pleaded guilty, AML Bitcoin founder was sentenced to seven years for fraud and money laundering and Hyperliquid dismissed hack rumors.
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WOO X Investigates $14M Breach
Seychelles-registered centralized crypto exchange WOO X is investigating a security breach that led to unauthorized withdrawals from nine customer accounts, totaling about $14 million. The platform paused withdrawals and blocked many of the unauthorized transactions. Affected users have been contacted, and the company has pledged to cover all stolen funds. The firm is collaborating with external security experts and other exchanges to track the stolen assets, which are moving across multiple blockchains, including Arbitrum, bitcoin, BNB Chain, ethereum and Tron.
Samourai Wallet Founders Move to Change Pleas in $2B Case
Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriquez and William Lonergan Hill each pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court on Wednesday to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The pair had previously pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from their cryptocurrency mixing service, which authorities say facilitated over $2 billion in illicit transactions, including $100 million in laundering from darkweb markets like Silk Road.
Federal prosecutors allege that Samourai’s CEO Rodriguez and CTO Hill designed the platform’s Whirlpool mixing service specifically to help users conceal criminal proceeds. They also allegedly promoted these capabilities openly on social media. The U.S. Department of Justice brought the charges against them in April. A superseding indictment filed in June also included a charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
AML Bitcoin Founder Sentenced to 7 Years for Crypto Fraud, Money Laundering
Rowland Marcus Andrade, founder and CEO of the NAC Foundation, was sentenced to seven years in U.S. federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering linked to his failed cryptocurrency project, AML Bitcoin. From 2014 to 2019, Andrade raised about $10 million by misleading investors about the coin’s technology, launch timeline and business partnerships.
Federal prosecutors say Andrade fabricated claims, including a false assertion that the Panama Canal Authority was set to approve AML Bitcoin for shipping transactions, an agreement that never existed. He diverted more than $2 million of investor funds to personal purchases, including two Texas properties and luxury vehicles.
A hearing on victim restitution and asset forfeiture is scheduled for Sept. 16 and Andrade’s prison term begins Oct. 31.
Hyperliquid Says API Outage, Not Hack, Halted Trading
Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange built on its own Layer 1 blockchain, issued automated refunds to users impacted by a trading outage caused by an API server overload. The incident led to more than 30 minutes of downtime, during which traders were unable to close positions, causing price divergences.
The team said the outage stemmed from a traffic surge and not a hack or vulnerability, adding that it is developing a refund methodology. Affected users don’t need to take action.
Hyperliquid’s blockchain and consensus layers continued to function normally despite the API disruption, with blocks produced as scheduled. Transactions were submitted to the mempool and confirmed on-chain, but users saw error messages due to server congestion.
