Two UK males who owned Banksy paintings have been jailed on Friday for stealing £5.7 million ($7.1 million) in crypto by utilizing a faux crypto alternate mimicking Blockchain.com.
38-year-old Jake Lee and 42-year-old James Heppel used the faux “blockchain.com” web site to bait customers into getting into their login particulars. With this data, the 2 gained entry to their sufferer’s crypto and bitcoin wallets and stole their funds.
In accordance to the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit, the pair managed to rip-off 55 victims in 26 completely different nations. Police have seized a £60,000 Banksy print, three automobiles, £64,000 in crypto, and £551,000 in a suitcase full of money from the pair as a part of a £835,000 ($1.04 million) seizure.
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Lee was arrested on suspicion of cash laundering in 2018, when police seized £24,000 in money and three laminated Bitcoin pockets restoration seeds.
Authorities mentioned, “At the same time, our unit had started an investigation into a cryptocurrency scam reported by a Wiltshire victim who had £11,000 worth of Bitcoin from his Blockchain wallet.”
“We took on the investigation into Lee and when we analysed his devices, we established he was a central figure involved in a sophisticated domain spoofing fraud and worked to identify numerous victims.”
The 2 pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit fraud and have been sentenced to 4 years and 15 months respectively final Friday. Lee has been ordered to handover £1 million to victims.
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