Oxford student goes to prison because he stole $ 2.6 million over a crypto fraud
Oxford student goes to prison because he stole $ 2.6 million over a crypto fraud
Wybo Wiersma-a 40-year-old Dutchman who studied at St. Cross College in Oxford-will serve a 54-month prison sentence because he has stolen £ 2,156,000 (more than $ 2.6 million) with a cryptocurrency system.
British detectives connected the fraud to the man who used the pseudonym Norbert van Denberg on his malignant website and in his university courses. Judge Michael Gledhill Kc Ordered Wiersma for four and a half years in prison. The culprit started his cryptocurrency fraud when he studied at the Internet Institute of St. Cross College. He set up a website under false name, which generated "seeds" (passwords, of which the users believed that they were not compromised). They were necessary to use Miota-a cryptocurrency with a current market capitalization of over $ 620 million. to the "Seeds", however, was attached to a malignant code, which Wiersma enabled access to customers' assets. He started stealing money and transferred it to his accounts. The criminal then converted the stolen Miota supply with Bitfinex in Monero (XMR) in January 2018. The platform intercept its dubious activities and caught its accounts by requesting proof of identity. Wiersma provided fake passes - one of a Belgian resident and one of an Australian called "Jason". Bitfinex did not authorize these documents, which made the Dutch to take advantage of the services of Binance. The world's leading crypto exchange quickly recognized its plans and blocked its access to the accounts. A number of investors of affected investors reported their missing assets to the German police in 2018. The latter cooperated with her British colleagues and initiated an investigation that she finally led to Wiersma's house in Oxford. The British enforcement officers searched the place, saw how his desktop computer was opened, and has followed his activities in recent years. When asked about the website, he did not provide any information and briefly returned to the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the investigators continued to work on the case and found that he used the pseudonym Norbert van den Berg on the seed-generating website and its university courses. They also connected the nickname with a Bitcoin payment. The authorities arrested him in the Netherlands on Christmas Eve 2020 and convicted him over two years later. Judge Gledhill said when announcing the punishment: "You are an expert in IT and computer science ... The fact is that you have decided to abuse your skills to steal. This is dishonesty at the highest level. Why did you commit these crimes and dishonesty, the two words that come to mind immediately."
Such fraud was very popular in the United Kingdom in recent years, and the market decline in 2022 has not stopped the activities of the bad factors. Indeed, crypto fraud increases Data Preserver-Spaces = "True"> by a third between October 2021 and September 2022. David Lindberg-previously executive officer of private customer business at Natwest warned "Fraud and fraud are an industry. They are intelligent and move quickly and it is heartbreaking to see how they try to destroy life." . "Greed and dishonest" behind the fraud
cryptosystems in the United Kingdom