British man arrested after stealing $11 million worth of cryptocurrency in 2018

Europol’s executive director, Catherine De Bolle

A joint police investigation has led to the arrest of a 36-year-old British man who is accused of stealing more than $11 million worth of cryptocurrency in 2018.

Europol confirmed on Wednesday that the British man had been arrested in connection with the theft of $11.34 million worth of IOTA tokens that had been siphoned out of 85 wallets in January 2018.

The investigation began in 2018 when German police were alerted to a number of thefts from German citizens. They traced the crime back to the UK, where they were joined by the Cybercrime Action Taskforce and British law enforcement.

The theft itself took place on a website made by the 36-year-old, with users being asked to input 81-digit security seeds for their IOTA wallets.

Europol said: “Several victims created the seed on this website in good faith, however the seeds were stored in the background by the service provider. Later the criminal used these to gain access to the victims’ wallets and transferred their money to other wallets created with fake IDs.”

The man was arrested in Oxford on Wednesday on suspicion of fraud, theft, and money laundering. He had computer equipment and electronic devices seized for further investigation.

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Oliver Knight

Londoner ‘Ollie’ graduated from Birmingham City University with a journalism degree in 2016. He combines his writing with his love of crypto and blockchain here at Coin Rivet, saying “It disrupts well-established institutions (banks) while giving an avenue to the less fortunate to achieve financial freedom.” Like all true Londoners, his pet hate is… “People standing on the left-hand side of the escalators on the Tube!”.