This appears to be similar to how Mt. Gox happened. Mt. Gox was created by Jed McCaleb and was sold to Mark Karpeles. It is rumored that Mt. Gox hack was actually executed by Jed McCaleb, but Mark Karpeles, being the CEO suffered for it.

Here Raphael Nicolle is the original founder. But, before the heist, Jean-Louis van der Velde was made the CEO. Below are the details pointing to the fact that he is the CEO of Bitfinex now...

https://twitter.com/eigerlaw/status/676692310168481792
https://twitter.com/Coin_and_Peace/status/724607826421653504
https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-l-van-der-velde-26a24b6
https://tether.to/why-use-tether/