protos.com
Police in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have arrested a 21-year-old crypto founder they say is connected to the $30 million rug pull by crypto betting platform ZKasino.
Crypto sleuth ZachXBT reports that Norwegian Ildar Ilham, who founded WhiteRock, a crypto-based brokerage, is to be extradited to the Netherlands, where his case will continue.
UAE police claim Ilham was in contact with another ZKasino suspect, believed to be Elham Nourzai, who was arrested on April 29, 2024, by Dutch authorities. Messages between the pair reportedly revealed that they never intended to return ZKasino funds and that its smart contract was designed to enforce this.
ZKasino users were “rug pulled” by the platform last year when it decided to convert 10,505 ether (ETH) of user deposits, now worth roughly $27 million, into the project’s own token before making it unavailable for users.
It then strung users along by promising a rather narrow window to withdraw their funds. At one point, a wallet linked to the heist was used to make a $27 million Hyperliquid bet on the price of ETH, which ultimately lost.
ZachXBT discovered that WhiteRock wallets were commingling funds with ZKasino and warned about the risk of another rug pull coming from WhiteRock.
He also noted how funds were being slowly laundered after Nourzai’s release and moved into Hyperliquid bets, over-the-counter brokers, and converted into the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Monero.