An Israeli national appeared before a federal court in California to face criminal charges alleging he stole nearly $2.9 million in cryptocurrency by exploiting a vulnerability in a decentralized finance network, federal prosecutors announced.
Alexander Gurevich, 49, made his initial court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California following his extradition from Israel, according to the Department of Justice. Israeli authorities had arrested Gurevich in May 2025 pursuant to a 2023 U.S. federal indictment.
Federal prosecutors allege that on or about August 1, 2022, Gurevich targeted the Nomad Bridge, a service operating on self-executing software code known as a smart contract. According to court records, Gurevich executed four unauthorized transactions, extracting 103 Wrapped Bitcoin and 300 Wrapped Ether from Nomad’s digital wallet and transferring those assets into addresses under his control.
At the time of the transfer, the stolen digital assets carried an estimated value of approximately $2,894,390.
Investigators further allege that Gurevich moved swiftly to conceal the trail of the stolen funds. He allegedly converted the tokens through a series of exchanges into other cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, and routed the proceeds through multiple digital wallets in an effort to obscure their ownership, origin, and location.
Gurevich faces charges of causing damage to a protected computer, interstate transportation of stolen funds, and money laundering.
If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the computer damage charge, up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine for interstate transportation of stolen funds, and up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine for money laundering.
The charges were announced by Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Scott R. Schelble.
The FBI led the investigation with support from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and law enforcement officials in Israel. Trial Attorneys Jessica Peck and Ethan Cantor of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section are prosecuting the case in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California.
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