Recently, a hacker involved in fraudulent activity and crypto theft, has been apprehended by UK’s South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU), as per Europol’s announcement. The criminal, allegedly, 36 years of age has been arrested by SEROCU, on account of money laundering, theft and suspicion of fraud. The alleged criminal was brought in after a search warrant was carried out at an address in Oxford, UK. Property was seized from the respective address, which included a number of mobile devices. Reportedly, the suspect has stolen over €10 million in the form of IOTA cryptocurrency, from almost 85 victims from all over the world.
In early 2018, numerous reports poured in, people claiming in these reports that their cryptocurrency wallets had been tampered with, as the money was missing from these wallets. Due to which an investigation was initiated by the Hessen State Police to further investigate the reported theft. From these investigations, the malware responsible for attacking the systems and stealing crypto was unveiled.
Each IOTA Wallet holder has to have a 81 digit seed, which is generated with the help of seed generator available online. The official website of IOTA also provides this facility in addition to several others. The fraud which was carried out had its roots in a website called Iotaseed.io. This website was used by the IOTA users to generate seeds for their wallets, which were later on emptied by the fraudulent schemer. The malicious software stored the seeds that were generated and used those to log into their wallets and steal their crypto. The assets that were hacked were moved to other wallets, which were created with fake IDs.
By mid 2018, a possible suspect was singled out by the German authorities. This suspect had been residing in UK and consequently this case had to be forwarded to the incumbent institutions of the aforementioned place. As the crime involved a number of states, a joint task force, Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) had to be brought in so that the matter could be resolved by the cooperation of all entities involved. This included an operational meeting which was held at Europol’s headquarter. The participants included German and British investigators and Europol’s EC3. Through this collaborative effort, the German and British authorities were able to successfully apprehend the suspect.
It has not been even a month into the new year and crypto related frauds and scams are making their way into headlines. The fraudulent schemers seem to endlessly come up with new and innovative ways to exploit the users of cryptocurrencies. This kind of activity has existed since cryptocurrencies became popular and gained value. With the passage of time the technology has been evolving, but with the nefarious minds of these scam artists at work, there are more than a few ways to hack into peoples wallets and steal their digital assets. Previously, there have been numerous ponzi schemes, SIM hijacking, all of which are ways to scam the users of their property. Allegedly, cryptocurrencies have also been increasingly used to launder money.
That being said, crypto users need to be more vigilant about the protective protocols that need to be incorporated in order to avoid becoming a victim to these scams. In addition to this, it also falls upon the government institutions to provide regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, so there are laws set in place that govern their use and help minimize the fraudulent activity and avoid money laundering. Granted the technology is still in the initial stages and there are a lot of loopholes to be identified, back doors to be closed shut so that there are lesser victims of crypto theft, it falls upon users to make all the necessary efforts to keep their assets safe.
