The US Department of Justice announced that a lawsuit was filed against Jonathan Spalletta, who lives in Maryland, for allegedly carrying out the attack in which more than $ 50 million of crypto money was stolen from the decentralized exchange Uranium Finance in 2021. Spalletta, 36, of Rockville, will be tried on charges of computer fraud and money laundering.
Details of the Uranium Finance attack
Within the scope of the investigation, it is stated that Spalletta, who targeted Uranium Finance’s systems, transferred digital assets reaching approximately 1.4 million dollars to his own account on April 8, 2021, using a vulnerability in the platform’s reward system. Following the incident, it is alleged that he turned the exploit in question into a fake “bug bounty” agreement and was allowed to keep an amount worth $386,000 within this scope.
Experts stated that after the Uranium Finance attack, BNB, BUSD and other assets in the platform’s key pools were quickly emptied and return was not possible. The widespread loss of funds led to the permanent closure of Uranium Finance. In February 2025, it was announced that approximately $31 million worth of crypto assets related to the attack were seized. With these developments, it is noteworthy that this is the first time a lawsuit has been filed in the DeFi field after an attack that occurred years ago.
How were crypto assets spent?
The indictment stated that Spalletta laundered the proceeds of crime through complex transactions, including the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, and then spent them on high-value collectibles. According to the information obtained, the collectibles include the Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card worth approximately 500 thousand dollars, closed Alpha booster packages worth approximately 1.5 million dollars, first edition Pokémon sets worth more than 1 million dollars in total, and the Roman coin “Eid Mar” symbolizing the assassination of Julius Caesar worth approximately 601 thousand 500 dollars.
The indictment also included the information that Spalletta wrote to a person after the incident and said, “I committed a crypto robbery… Crypto is already fake internet money.”
In the criminal complaint prepared, it was alleged that Spalletta carried out various transactions and made luxury expenses, including collection cards and rare coins, in order to hide his earnings from crime.
Finally, it was reported that Spalletta surrendered and is expected to appear before a US judge in Manhattan.
