An attacker exploited the Axelar Secret bridge ics20-for-axelar contract to mint $4.67M of unbacked saTokens by forging IBC deposit packets from a malicious blockchain. The attacker created a minimal Cosmos blockchain with a single validator, opened a fake IBC channel to Secret Network, and sent forged deposit packets that bypassed channel validation. The minted tokens were redeemed back over the legitimate IBC channel to drain Axelar's escrow account, remaining undetected for seven days until a failed cross-chain transfer revealed the empty escrow.