British detectives have seized $22.25 million from operators of an international cryptocurrency scam. Among the items seized was a USB stick containing ethereum value $9.5 million. The police are actually making an attempt to contact the victims of this rip-off to return their funds.
UK Police Seize Crypto in USB Stick
The U.K.’s Greater Manchester Police introduced Wednesday that it’s Financial Crime Unit has seized a USB stick containing “huge amounts of ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin.”
The USB stick was discovered after the police arrested a 23-year-old male and a 25-year-old female for fraud and cash laundering offenses. The pair have since been released under investigation.
The announcement particulars:
Specialist officers received intelligence that these working the scheme had been in Manchester for a restricted time and tracked them down, recovering an encrypted USB stick containing $9.5 million of stolen ethereum.
The police mentioned that $12.7 million extra have been seized a few days later when a “cryptograph safety deposit box” and “the code to access it” have been located. In total, $22.25 million have been seized from the scammers, the Economic Crime Unit confirmed. At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $3,231.
The victims of the scam have been based mostly within the U.K., U.S., Europe, China, Australia, and Hong Kong. They “deposited money, together with life savings, into what they thought was a web-based saving and buying and selling service utilizing Binance Smart Chain, which shops and data transactions made in crypto-currency confirming their motion and worth,” the police described.
After a major amount of cash had been deposited, the scammers shut down their website and transferred the funds to their own accounts
The police detailed:
The sum totalled 90% of the cryptocurrency stolen, and work has now begun on re-uniting it with the rightful house owners, a few of whom are still unknown and situated the world over.
Detective Chief Inspector Joe Harrop commented: “We urge anyone involved in these platforms to make use of extreme caution, and know that there are still important vulnerabilities and dangers that would put their financial savings at risk.”
UK police have recently been active in seizing cryptocurrencies. In July, the Metropolitan Police seized £180 million in crypto as a part of a money-laundering investigation after they confiscated £114 million in crypto just a few weeks prior.
