Jury convicts Maryland man of laundering proceeds of $53m Uranium Finance crypto hack

On October 7, 2026, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced that a jury had convicted Jonathan Spalletta, 36, of Rockville, Maryland. He was found guilty on both counts of the indictment: one count of computer fraud and one count of money laundering. The verdict followed a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.

Uranium Finance was a decentralized crypto exchange, meaning users traded through automated smart contracts and shared pools of funds called liquidity pools. According to prosecutors, Spalletta exploited flaws in those smart contracts twice in April 2021. In the first attack he took about $1.4 million, and he later kept about $386,000 under what prosecutors called a sham "bug bounty" arrangement. In the second attack he took about $53.3 million, and the exchange shut down because it no longer had enough funds.

Prosecutors say Spalletta laundered the stolen crypto through complex transactions, including the Tornado Cash mixer, a service that blends deposits from many users to hide where funds came from. He then bought high-value collectibles, including rare trading cards and an antique Roman coin. Law enforcement seized crypto worth about $31 million at the time of seizure in February 2025, and collectibles were seized from his home.

Computer fraud carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and money laundering carries a maximum of 20 years. A judge will decide the actual sentence. Homeland Security Investigations led the investigation.