Ex‑Coinbase support agent in India arrested in probe of crypto exchange hack

A former Coinbase support agent in India has been arrested after being linked to a massive security breach that shook the crypto giant earlier this year.

The arrest, confirmed by both Coinbase and Indian police in Hyderabad, came months after hackers bribed customer service staff to steal customer information. This triggered a $20 million ransom demand and left the company facing a $400 million fallout.

The breach began in May, when hackers managed to buy access from Coinbase contractors outside the U.S. and gain entry to internal systems. They didn’t hack through firewalls or code, they just found staff and offered cash.

“What these attackers were doing was finding Coinbase employees and contractors based in India who were associated with our business process outsourcing or support operations, that kind of thing, and bribing them in order to obtain customer data,” said Philip Martin, Coinbase’s Chief Security Officer.

Coinbase says access was shut down quickly

The breach was so wide that it allowed attackers near-instant access to customer accounts for months. This type of social engineering attack has become a growing problem in the crypto world. It’s simple: pay someone on the inside.

Philip denied that the hackers had full access the entire time. He said in an interview with Bloomberg News that once the company discovered staff were leaking data, their access was immediately revoked. “They did not have persistent access over the course of the entire period,” he claimed.

The arrest was announced on X by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who wrote: “We have zero tolerance for bad behavior and will continue to work with law enforcement to bring bad actors to justice. Thanks to the Hyderabad Police in India, an ex-Coinbase customer service agent was just arrested. Another one down and more still to come.”

Not everyone clapped. One user replied under Brian’s post: “lol why you acting like this is a win. You hired them in the first place.”

Coinbase faces rising costs and deeper scrutiny

Coinbase is still digging out of the mess.The cost of repairing damage and reimbursing affected users could be as high as $400 million, putting it among the top ten biggest crypto hacks ever, according to Elliptic.

In February, Bybit suffered a similar attack that cost them $1.5 billion, and in total, $2.2 billion was lost to crypto hacks in 2024, per Chainalysis data.

A Coinbase spokesperson confirmed the India arrest and said it followed the firm’s work with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, where charges were recently filed against a Brooklyn man accused of running “a long-running impersonation scheme targeting Coinbase customers.”

Meanwhile, Coinbase shares slipped 1.2% to $236.79 on Friday, and are now down about 4.6% in 2025.

Despite the chaos, Coinbase still holds most of the $122 billion in spot-Bitcoin ETF tokens, and remains a major political player. It’s become the largest crypto donor in U.S. politics, pouring over $52 million into campaigns during the 2024 cycle.

The crypto industry overall made up half of the nearly $250 million in corporate political donations, with Coinbase leading the pack, according to watchdog group Public Citizen and data from OpenSecrets.

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