• 36-year-old Wybo Wiersma, a Ph.D. student of Oxford, was sentenced to four and half years in prison for a 2 million euro crypto scam.
• Wiersma set up a website that generated false private keys (seeds) to access IOTA cryptocurrency.
• Wiersma converted the stolen funds to Bitcoin and Monero using Bitfinex crypto exchange but the exchange froze his accounts when they suspected something suspicious.
Cryptocurrency Crime Sentences
The British Royal Court recently sentenced a 36-year-old Ph.D. student of Oxford, Wybo Wiersma, to four and half years in prison for a 2 million euro crypto scam on January 27th.
How The Scam Worked
Wiersma created a website when he was studying at St Cross College called iotaseed.io which supposedly generated private keys (seeds) for users to trade IOTA cryptocurrency with passwords they call seeds. However, what he was actually doing was writing malicious codes on the website so he could access each user’s “seeds” when they carried out transactions and hijack funds into his personal account.
Bitfinex Exchange Suspicious Activity
When Wiersma transferred the stolen funds to the Bitfinex crypto exchange, their suspicion was aroused as it seemed too good to be true and thus froze his accounts until he identified himself by presenting two fake passports – one from Belgium which did not correctly outline the country stated in the document and another photogram of someone holding an Australian passport who went by Jason.
Funds Recovered By Crypto Exchange & Foundation
After freezing Wiersma’s accounts, Bitfinex demanded that he identify himself before they could unfreeze his accounts but failed due to providing fake documents leading them to remain frozen – however part of the stolen funds were recovered by both the IOTA foundation and affected crypto exchanges after blocking all of Wiersma’s accounts preventing him from further stealing money from users online via their cryptocurrencies .
Conclusion
Cryptocurrency crimes are becoming prevalent with law enforcement agencies cracking down on bad players involved in such activities like Wybo Wiermsa who scammed unsuspecting users out of millions of euros worth of cryptocurrencies using fake private keys (seeds). Despite attempts made by criminals like him, thankfully there are still measures put in place by authorities including exchanges and foundations that help protect users’ investments against any future scams or frauds related to cryptocurrency trading online .