Starting point
The client signed a malicious approve transaction on a clone of an official dApp. The drainer pulled out USDT and part of the ETH balance within 6 minutes. By the time we were engaged the funds had already cleared the first cross-chain bridge hop and the client had lost visual control of the flow.
- 4 cross-chain bridges (Wormhole, Stargate, deBridge, Synapse)
- 2 mixing services with different pool mechanics
- final OKX deposit split across 5 sub-accounts
- part of the funds had already been routed to P2P wallets
What we did
- Emergency tracing (day 1–5). Reconstructed the chain across 4 bridges using timestamps, volume and fee signatures. On two of the bridges we matched input/output via unique amounts.
- Mixer deconstruction (day 6–14). Analysed temporal distribution of outputs, clustered addresses by behavioural patterns. Identified 73% of the drained amount on the output side.
- OKX freeze order (day 15–21). Filed a formal package with OKX compliance through legal counsel: tracing report, EU law-enforcement filing, urgency justification. Obtained a temporary freeze on the deposits.
- Legal recovery (day 22–38). Cleared the victim verification process, synchronised actions with local law enforcement, funds returned through OKX's official stolen-asset recovery mechanism.
Outcome
Recovery of $211,800 (~73% of the total loss) in 38 days. The remaining 27% had been off-ramped to fiat before the freeze order — that segment remains an open case with law enforcement.
Lesson from this case
The first 4 hours after a drainer attack determine up to 70% of the final outcome. The most important action by the victim is not to attempt a self-recovery but to immediately document the attack and engage a tracing team — before the funds clear an off-ramp.
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