Bulgarian Authorities Arrest Three Men over Bitcoin Theft, Recover $3 Million

The Bulgarian police force has arrested three men for orchestrating a cryptocurrency theft worth $5 million and local authorities have only succeeded in recovering $3 million from them, plus a car worth about $34,800, reported  Finance Magnates on November 26, 2018.

Three Cryptocriminals Nabbed

Per sources close to the matter, the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office has released a statement alleging that local police officers had arrested three sophisticated cyberpunks who succeeded in stealing $5 million worth of cryptocurrencies.

Importantly, the police say they’ve recovered $3 million worth of cryptoassets from the bandits, plus a flashy car worth $34,800 allegedly purchased by one of the culprits with the proceeds from the crime.

The remaining $2 million is yet to be accounted for.

Although the report failed to state categorically whom the victims of the three hackers were, it, however, noted that the fraudsters are quite sophisticated, as they possessed excellent computer literacy skills.

In addition to the recovered funds, several flash drives, computers, hard drives and a set of notebooks were reportedly seized from them.

End of the Road, Bail Set at $29,000

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the arrest of the three criminals represents a significant victory for the law enforcement agents as they have been investigating the matter since June 2018.

Now, authorities have reportedly detained two of the three crypto thieves while a bail amount of BGN 50, 000 ($29,000) has been set for the third man.

While digital assets and the distributed ledger technology (DLT) have massive potentials to revolutionize the finance sector as well as a vast array of industries, rogue actors, however, remain a huge threat to the continued survival of these nascent technologies.

Earlier in January 2018, BTCManager informed that in an operation which has been tagged as the second most extensive case of bitcoin theft, a total of 213, 519 BTC which was seized by Bulgarian authorities as part of a criminal investigation called PRATKA/VIRUS, went missing without a trace.

In July 2018, BTCManager reported that cryptocurrency security firm, CipherTrace had released research results stating that at least $761 million was stolen and laundered from cryptocurrency exchanges in the first half of 2018 alone, an outrageous amount compared to the $266 million taken in 2017.

Despite the sophisticated nature of some of these fraudsters, law enforcement has been doing their best to thwart the activities of cyberpunks.

On November 22, 2018, BTCManager informed that Nicholas Truglia, a 21-year old Manhattan resident had been apprehended for carrying out phone swapping attacks that generated a whopping $1 million worth of cryptos.