Crypto trader arrested for manipulating mango markets, causing $110m losses

Avraham Eisenberg, a crypto trader, was arrested in Puerto Rico on Monday for using his "highly profitable trading strategy" to siphon off digital assets worth $110 million from decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform Mango Markets.

What happened: Eisenberg was accused of fraudulent and manipulative activities regarding Mango Markets, the complaint reveals. In October this year, he and his team exploited the platform by artificially inflating the price of its native MNGO MNGO/USD token by an incredible 1300%.

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Deposition by FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz alleges that Eisenberg "willfully and knowingly" violated Mango Markets futures contracts through a scheme involving deceptive practices and intentionally manipulated prices.

According to Racz, Eisenberg "engaged in a scheme involving the intentional and artificial manipulation of the price of perpetual futures on a cryptocurrency exchange called Mango Markets, and others manipulative and deceptive devices and artifices.”

Eisenberg called himself a "digital art dealer" according to his bio on Twitter. It returned over $67 million to the Solana-based DeFi platform on October 16 and kept $47 million in bug bounty. He had publicly admitted to profiting from the crypto exchange, revealing that he was part of a group that "follows a very profitable trading strategy" and believes that all of their activities are legal and within the bounds of the free market.

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The attacker had cleared assets including USD Coin USDC/USD, Marinade Staked Solana MSOL/USD, Solana SOL/USD, Bitcoin BTC/USD, Tether USDT/USD, Serum SRM/ USD and Mango MNGO/EUR.

Price Action: At the time of writing, MNGO was trading at $0.02, down 0.51% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Read more: 'How to survive in prison': Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli offers advice to Bankman-Fried

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