$53M Crypto Theft Rocks Thai Exchange Bitkub as SEC Cracks Down
A Thai cryptocurrency exchange, Bitkub Online, is facing allegations of hiding a $53 million theft in its daily capital reports to prevent a bank run. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a criminal complaint against Bitkub and two former directors, Sakolkorn Sakavee and Thaweesap Rawan.
The SEC alleges that Bitkub's daily net-capital reports, known as Form DA 1, failed to show the effect of a 2021 theft involving about 1.7 billion baht (roughly $53 million) in customer assets. The regulator claims that Bitkub gave false statements and that the two former directors made false entries in company documents.
According to the SEC, a May 2021 cyberattack caused customer assets across 16 cryptocurrencies to be withdrawn from the exchange. Bitkub's Form DA 1 reports from May 10 through October 30, 2021, showed no material change in its asset balance from the theft.
Bitkub claims it chose not to reveal the stolen assets to prevent a bank run while it was trying to replace them. The company says its co-founders absorbed the loss by buying the same currencies in the same quantities and that neither the company nor its customers suffered asset losses from the incident.