The Italian court has recently ordered Francesco Firano, the founder and owner of hacked cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail to recover the losses to his customers. The decision were released on Jan 21.

In February 2018, Firano reported that 17 million Nano tokens, approximately $195 million worth of customers’ cryptocurrency, had been illegally withdrawn as the result of flaws in the software developed by the Nano Team. He then denied his responsibility for the losses.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office, on the other hand, pointed out that “the exchange was responsible for the loss in question, because it fails to take suitable actions to prevent the cryptocurrencies from being hacked.”

Firano was censured for keeping all of the exchanges investment funds in a hot wallet. It was not until December 2017 that  Firano converted the exchange’s central wallet to a cold wallet. Prosecutors also revealed to the court that just days before reporting the hack, Firano had deposited 230 BTC into a personal account on a cryptocurrency exchange

The court concluded that the exchange had failed to provide sufficient safeguards to ensure the “idempotency” of NANO withdrawals. Mr. Firano was then at fault for the loss and “be declared bankrupt, authorizing seizures of many of Mr. Firano’s personal assets.” So far, more than $1 million worth of assets and a luxury car have been seized, according to the document.