Bitcoin Thefts: Europol Arrests Six People Involved In A $27 Million Scam

The United Kingdom’s South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit has recently partnered with Europol and the Dutch police to put an end to one of the recent Bitcoin thefts. The UK National Crime Agency (NCA) was also part of the action, coordinating the arrests of six people which managed to steal over $27 million in cryptocurrency.

“This case was referred to the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) hosted at Europol after the British authorities identified possible suspects living in the Netherlands. Operational support delivered by EC3 since February 2018 allowed the J-CAT to coordinate the international cooperation between the different EU Member States involved,” the release featured on Europol’s website notes.

The news were confirmed in a press release on June 25, featuring the attackers and their “typosquatting” fraud. For those of you who don’t follow the latest cryptocurrency news on our website, typosquatting is basically one of the Bitcoin thefts in which hackers steal credentials by setting up a scam website with a similar name to an established one – hence the “typo” in the name – and then stealing their login data.

This is not the end to the Bitcoin thefts, especially not the end to the ones organized by Europol and the UK authorities. “[…] Operational meetings were organised at Europol’s headquarters between the British and Dutch authorities, allowing for the smooth exchange of intelligence and evidence which led to these successful arrests. A coordination meeting was also held at Eurojust to prepare for the action day.”

In the specific case we are talking about, the report notes that Europol believes that the hackers were able to use typosquatting and therefore steal the login details, gaining access to client wallets and the funds inside. As one of the most recent million dollar Bitcoin thefts, this scheme resulted in stealing at least 4,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from users in 12 different countries.

The six individuals were reportedly based in the UK and Netherlands, as many best cryptocurrency news sites noted. As the report shows, Europol provided coordination for the British and Dutch agencies who shared the information as well as the evidence in their headquarters preceding the arrests.

As we previously reported in the altcoin news, there was a clone website to Cryptohopper found by the malware watchdogs which stole crypto login credentials. The website uses the same logo as the original crypto trading tools website Cryptohopper, tricking the users into installing its executable which downloads and runs mining and clipping trojans which are designed to steal cryptocurrency from the user’s wallets.