A collaborative effort between the UK’s South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU), the Hessen State Police in Germany, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and Europol, has successfully identified and arrested a male suspect in connection with a case of fraud, theft and money laundering that resulted in the theft of around €10 million (Approximately $11.3 Million) in IOTA (MIOTA). The 36 year-old man was arrested following the execution of a search warrant targeting an address in the city of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
The operation netted a number of computers and electronic devices that are linked to the crime of defrauding over 85 victims worldwide since January 2018.
According to a Europol official report, the investigations begun in early 2018 when the Hessen State Police were notified by citizens of funds being stolen from their cryptocurrency wallets. Initial investigations then led to a website where the cyber crime was being carried out: Iotaseed.io. The website tricked users into creating seeds for their wallets while at the same time, it kept records of these 81 digit codes. The man behind the website would then access the victim’s wallets and transfer the coins to other wallets created with fake IDs.
By mid 2018, German authorities had been able to track the fraudulent activities to a suspect living in the United Kingdom. The case was then forwarded to the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). Once at Europol, J-CAT was able to coordinate the authorities of the different EU member States affected by the crime.
A short video report of the operation is available below.
Reaction of the IOTA Community
The IOTA community took to twitter to express their delight and satisfaction when news broke that a suspect in the case had been apprehended. One of the tweets can be found below.
No fucking way. That headline makes me so happy!
Europol arrests UK man for stealing €10 million worth of #IOTA cryptocurrency https://t.co/ZTJbMCyQoi via @ZDNet & @campuscodi— 42 💎🦋💎 (@42_paradox) January 23, 2019
What are your thoughts on Europol arresting a suspect linked to the theft of millions of IOTA from unsuspecting investors worldwide? Were you affected by the theft? Please let us know in the comment section below.
[Image courtesy of Europol]
Disclaimer: This article is not meant to give financial advice. Any additional opinion herein is purely the author’s and does not represent the opinion of Ethereum World News or any of its other writers. Please carry out your own research before investing in any of the numerous cryptocurrencies available. Thank you.
