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7.50%UK Police Recover $22M in Stolen Crypto From Scammers
Police are looking to return the stolen assets to their owners, who are located around the world.
U.K. police have seized $22.2 million in cryptocurrency and made two arrests after specialist officers learned of a scheme in Greater Manchester that led to the discovery of USB sticks containing significant amounts of ethereum.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
- The police allege that victims were tricked into depositing their savings into what they thought was an online savings and trading service using Binance Smart Chain.
- Police said they arrested a 23-year-old male and a 25-year-old female for alleged fraud and money laundering offenses. Both have since been released under investigation.
- The Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) Economic Crime Unit reported a total of $9.5 million of stolen ethereum was discovered in USB sticks taken from victims in the Australia, China, Europe, Hong Kong, the U.K. and the U.S.
- The police discovered an additional $12.7 million a few days later after finding a cryptograph safety deposit box, a type of online safe, including its access code.
- "Our lives are increasingly moving online or onto our phones, and currencies like bitcoin and ethereum are often seen as the future when it comes to money and trading,” Detective Chief Inspector Joe Harrop of Greater Manchester Police's Economic Crime Unit said in a statement. "With that comes a new type of crime and we're seeing a rise in opportunist criminals looking to exploit these trends.”
- Police said they have started returning the stolen assets to the rightful owners, some of whom are still unknown.
Read more: UK Financial Watchdog Warns That ICO Crypto Is a Clone Company
Tanzeel Akhtar
Tanzeel Akhtar has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes Africa, Financial Times, The Street, Citywire, Investing.com, Euromoney, Yahoo! Finance, Benzinga, Kitco News, African Business Magazine, Hedge Week, Campden Family Office, Modern Investor, Spear's Wealth Management Magazine, Global Investor, ETF.com, ETF Stream, CIO UK, Funds Global Asia, Portfolio Institutional, Interactive Investor, Bitcoin Magazine, CryptoNews.com, Bitcoin.com, The Local, The Next Web, Mining Journal, Money Marketing, Marketing Week and more. Tanzeel trained as a foreign correspondent at the University of Helsinki, Finland and newspaper journalist at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She holds a BA (Honours) in English Literature from the Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and completed a semester abroad as an ERASMUS student at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She is NCTJ Qualified - Media Law, Public Administration and passed the Shorthand 100WPM with distinction. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.
