Mango Markets exploiter Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg may very well be going through over six years in jail, as U.S. prosecutors have pushed for a hefty sentence forward of his Could 1 listening to.
In an April 22 submitting, federal prosecutors informed New York district court docket Choose Arun Subramanian that Eisenberg’s 2022 exploit of the Solana-based DeFi platform was not a intelligent arbitrage however a premeditated assault that defrauded traders of over $100 million.
“Fraud that takes over $100 million from investors and effectively shuts down a business is a shocking violation of criminal law,” the submitting acknowledged.
Prosecutors are looking for a sentence of 78 to 97 months, roughly six and a half to eight years, citing each the severity of the fraud and Eisenberg’s separate responsible plea in a baby exploitation case. Nonetheless, they emphasised that the crypto-related offenses alone warrant a considerable jail time period.
Eisenberg was convicted in April of wire fraud, commodities fraud, and market manipulation for manipulating the worth of Mango’s governance token, MNGO, and utilizing inflated collateral to empty the protocol’s treasury.
Prosecutors allege that he used false identities and disguised his location, opening an FTX account utilizing a Ukrainian girl’s passport and bypassing KYC checks on AscendEx by choosing a no-verification choice and masking his IP as being in Poland.
Additional, the submitting pointed to Discord chats the place Eisenberg outlined his plans prematurely, describing how he would “buy a ton, massively increase the price, and borrow on lending,” including that “you don’t need to sell—you can just let the loan stand.”
Though Eisenberg returned round $67 million following a DAO vote, the federal government mentioned it was underneath the situation that Mango DAO “waive any potential claims” and chorus from pursuing felony prices.
“This was not returning funds in any genuine sense of the term,” prosecutors mentioned, framing the transfer as “a ransom note.”
The submitting additionally touched upon how Eisenberg researched fraud legal guidelines earlier than the assault and fled to Israel hours after being recognized on-line. Later, on social media, he publicly defended his actions, claiming the commerce was authorized, although prosecutors argue he knew in any other case.
“The defendant knew that fraudulent market manipulation is illegal, and that the cryptocurrency space was no exception,” they wrote.
In a separate sufferer affect assertion filed the identical day, attorneys representing Mango Markets urged the court docket to order Eisenberg to pay $47 million in restitution, arguing that the return of misappropriated funds is crucial to creating the platform’s neighborhood complete.
“Although Eisenberg’s attack cannot be undone, return of the funds he misappropriated is critical to righting his wrong,” the submitting acknowledged.
Mango Markets shut down in early 2025 following a unanimous neighborhood vote, citing the long-term affect of the exploit and ongoing authorized fallout.
