Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has confirmed that it was the victim of a cyberattack that allowed fraudulent transactions to be carried out. But behind the bank’s cautious statement lies a much more important matter: its online bank Fortuneo was used to embezzle around 118 million euros and then launder them in cryptocurrencies.
In a press releaseCrédit Mutuel Arkéa admits having suffered a cyber attack. The group explains that piracy allowed fraudulent transactions to be carried out, without specifying their nature, amount or the entity directly affected. The bank assures that the incident is now under control and that operations are gradually resuming after a temporary suspension of certain transactions. He also claims that his clients’ assets are not affected.
To understand the magnitude of the matter, we must turn to the investigations of ZachXBT, an independent researcher specialized in tracking transactions on blockchains. On November 2, it reported the withdrawal of more than $106 million in stablecoins from accounts associated with an unnamed European entity. He then discovered an additional $27 million, raising his estimate to more than $133 million, or €118 million. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa was eventually named as an alleged victim in its publications.
Fortuneo hacked and used to embezzle funds
It is Grégory Raymond, journalist specialized in cryptocurrencies and co-founder of The Big Whale, who provides the most important details about the progress of the operation. According to your information posted on X/TwitterThe direct target was Fortuneo, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa’s online bank. The hackers managed to make transfers by choosing the beneficiary’s name themselves, so that it corresponded exactly to that of the recipient’s account holder. A technique to bypass matching checks between the name of the issuer and the beneficiary.
🔴 Exclusive
Fraud at Crédit Mutuel Arkéa (@cmarkea): how a network emptied its online bank accounts @Fortuneo
By combining testimony from new sources with what chain analysis shows, we can now reconstruct, step by step, the path… https://t.co/2Cf6jrLTye
-Gregory Raymond (@gregory_raymond) November 4, 2026
The origin of this manipulation remains unknown. A source cited by Grégory Raymond raises two hypotheses: a compromise of Fortuneo’s payment systems or a human intervention facilitated by a technique close to the president’s scam. The latter consists of usurping the identity of a manager to force an employee to carry out a financial transaction. This source favors the second option, but there is nothing yet to confirm the exact scenario.
The funds were then directed to several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Kraken, Crypto.com, and OKX. According to research by ZachXBT and analysis by the company Bitquery, the identified withdrawals include $108.8 million in USDC, a stable cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar. Once the funds were recovered, the hackers converted a portion into Ethereum before distributing the sums across numerous wallets. Some transfers also resulted in Monero, a cryptocurrency designed to make transactions particularly difficult to trace. Crypto.com confirmed that it had blocked the funds associated with the case, while specifying that its users’ accounts remained secure.
Can Fortuneo customers rest assured?
Crédit Mutuel Arkéa states that its clients’ assets are not affected. The disruptions affect the processing of certain transactions, in particular temporarily suspended transfers. There is nothing to confirm at this point that individuals’ checking or savings accounts have been emptied.
However, several questions remain unanswered: How did hackers manage to trigger these transfers? What is the actual amount of losses, knowing that over-the-counter transactions may not appear in the estimates? in chain ? And why were operations able to continue for several days? ZachXBT estimates that more than $30 million may have been laundered before the freeze measures were taken. For its part, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa indicates that it continues to evaluate the consequences of the attack. The group also warns its clients against possible phishing attempts that take advantage of this issue.
All of this comes a few days after the big Binance hack, which involved $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency.
