Crypto theft suspect from Canada slips Europe custody, resurfaces in Bosnia

The infamous Canadian mathematician was released after being held in Serbia for 105 days in 2024, but his whereabouts are now unknown, rumored to be somewhere in Bosnia.

Andean Medjedovic, a Hamilton native celebrated for academic brilliance in maths, used his education to swindle over $65 million from crypto projects. Even though Interpol had caught up with him in Europe two years back, the “analytical thief” is nowhere to be found today.

Medjedovic finished high school at 14 and earned a master’s degree in pure mathematics at 18. He then turned to a life of crime, although his international troubles began after a flight departed Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for Kuwait through Istanbul. 

On December 11, 2023, two weeks after boarding the trip, Dutch authorities issued a European arrest warrant for the “kid that carried out a hack” that yielded $48 million in digital assets. Medjedovic was arrested in Belgrade, Serbia, nine months after the warrant was issued. 

Medjedovic used fake aliases, passports in hotels around Europe  

According to records from extradition proceedings at the Belgrade Higher Court, reviewed by investigative journalists, he controlled about $65 million in crypto while on the run. 

No one has been able to trace the exact locations he had visited since 2021, up until his arrest in Belgrade. Medjedovic told reporters he had been in South America, on unnamed islands, and a jail “somewhere in Europe.” Serbian court translations show he traveled through Brazil, Dubai, and Spain after vanishing in late 2021.

“He may be able to live large,” said Kyle Armstrong, a former FBI agent now with TRM Labs. “However, to pay your rent, to buy a car, to travel, there’s not many places that are willing to accept cryptocurrency.” Armstrong believes that if the funds were obscured, the suspect “may have cashed out some of his millions of dollars.”

Medjedovic is very popular in crypto circles because he is alleged to have exploited two platforms. The US DOJ and the Netherlands have linked him to the hack of the Vietnam-based DeFi multichain aggregator KyberSwap.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, Kyberswap suffered a front-end bot exploit in 2023, resulting in the loss of $48 million in user funds. After fraudulently walking away with the assets, the attacker sent a public message to the firm. “Negotiations will start in a few hours when I am fully rested. Thank you.” 

That exchange of words later formed part of a US indictment unsealed in early 2025, supporting the DOJ’s extortion charge. Dutch authorities claimed the Kyber incident was launched from a hotel in The Hague. They say Medjedovic checked in with a false Slovak passport and left the morning after the hack, even though he had paid for a month’s stay.

An Ontario court issued a bench warrant in late 2021 when he failed to appear in a civil case. He also allegedly exploited code vulnerabilities on the Index Finance platform at age 18, racking up $16.5 million.

Where is Medjedovic now? 

According to Dutch police records, he used a Bosnian passport for one flight and a Slovak passport for travel to Sarajevo. Medjedovic told the Serbian court that he holds Bosnian citizenship, not Canadian.

Moreover, Global Affairs Canada confirmed it “was aware of a Canadian citizen detained abroad” in the summer of 2024. 

After traveling to Bosnia in 2023, the Dutch warrant was followed by an Interpol Red Notice. His next confirmed location was the United Arab Emirates. He told the Belgrade court he “was in Dubai for four months,” using the name Lorenzo. He also booked an apartment in Belgrade under that name, leading to his arrest in August 2024.

Medjedovic was held in custody for 105 days, but he was released after the Dutch failed in an extradition attempt. Judges said Dutch prosecutors had not sufficiently proven that he committed the crimes, and that the potential domestic penalties were too light.

A US court filing submitted in January last year revealed the “defendant is believed to be at large in Bosnia.” When CBC’s reporters caught wind of chatter that he was outside Sarajevo, they contacted the building manager where he was allegedly living in the city. However, they were told that although authorities came looking for him, “he was never seen there.”

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