Erin would have to literally sneak into server rooms, physically plug in hard drives and copy over the incriminating data. GUO: Back in the early 2000s, it was kind of the dawn of digital evidence. PLANTE: I'm very much a math, science, black, white, nothing colorful in between kind of person. And Erin loved this methodical kind of work. ROMER: When Erin first started out 20 years ago, she was helping governments investigate bribery and corruption and tracking down where all those bribes were going. GUO: Because by the time they find out, they've disappeared. I actually don't think most people in my regular life have any idea what I do. PLANTE: I've never had to use that phrase before (laughter). GUO: How often in your regular life do you have to use the phrase, it's classified? Erin is the vice president of investigations at a startup called Chainalysis, and she's often working side by side with law enforcement. GUO: A lot of times when there's a high-profile crypto crime, Erin and her team get called in. GUO: Today on the show, the biggest crypto heist of all time, a case that would eventually pull in the FBI, raise alarms at the highest levels of government and threaten the nuclear security of the entire planet. phone call would launch an 18-monthlong investigation and lead Erin to face off against some of the world's most sophisticated digital money launderers. And now it was Erin's job to track down where it all went.
GUO: It was, in fact, the largest crypto heist in history. That's a huge amount of money, an absolutely astounding amount of money. ROMER: Six hundred million dollars' worth of crypto plucked out of one of the company's digital wallets. PLANTE: I think the first words out of his mouth were Axie Infinity lost $600 million. Erin was about to get the biggest assignment of her life. ROMER: Erin is essentially a private detective who specializes in hunting down stolen cryptocurrency, and that frantic caller was her boss. In the middle of the night, Erin Plante gets a phone call.ĮRIN PLANTE: It was about 4 o'clock in the morning, and you know when your phone is set to do not disturb, but when someone calls you repeatedly in such short increments of time, it will actually ring through? That's what's happened.
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GUO: Then in March of 2022, this candy-colored paradise full of happy-go-lucky but also weirdly lucrative digital pets was the scene of a shocking crime.
The company behind Axie Infinity grew into a multibillion-dollar business. ROMER: A lot of Axie's fans seemed convinced that the game was proof that crypto could be used to create an entire economic ecosystem. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You can even trade your Axies for cryptocurrency on our marketplace. People have made this game their full-time job. GUO: Except every pet is also an NFT - basically, this digital Beanie Baby - and some of them were selling for thousands of dollars. You buy these tiny little digital pet blobs with tiny little legs, and you fight them against other people's tiny pet blobs. You can think of it as, like, blockchain Pokemon. (SOUNDBITE OF LOFI NIGHT DRIVES' "AXIE INFINITY THEME SONG (LOFT CHILLHOP)") One of the biggest things in the world of crypto a couple of years ago was this game called Axie Infinity. SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: This is PLANET MONEY from NPR. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at /planetmoney. This episode was hosted by Jeff Guo and Keith Romer, produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Willa Rubin & Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. Erin's investigation would lead her to face off against some of the world's most formidable digital money launderers, whose actions would soon raise alarms at the highest levels of government - even threaten the nuclear security of the entire planet. And now it was Erin's job to find that money and get it back.
It was the largest crypto heist in history. In March of 2022, she got the biggest assignment of her career: Hackers had broken into an online game called Axie Infinity and made off with over $600 million worth of digital money.
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How investigators cracked the Axie Infinity crypto hack : Planet Money Erin Plante is a private detective who specializes in chasing down stolen cryptocurrency.
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