Canadian police arrest teenager for stealing $36.5 million in bitcoins
Alexander Antipov
The teenager spent some of the money buying rare in-game usernames, which led the police to him.
Law enforcement officers in Canada stopped a teenager suspected of stealing approximately $36.5 million worth of cryptocurrencies from a single person in the United States. Police in the city of Hamilton (Ontario, Canada) called the incident the largest single-person cryptocurrency theft in history.
The victim was the victim of a so-called SIM card swap – the attacker gained access to his phone number and intercepted the two-factor authentication codes, thanks to which he managed to take control of the wallet secured.
The thief used some of the stolen money to buy rare usernames in online games, which led him to the Hamilton Police Department, the FBI and the United States Electronic Crimes Task Force. US Secret Service. After the teenager was arrested, law enforcement seized approximately $5.5 million in stolen cryptocurrency from him.
2021 has been a big year in terms of cryptocurrency theft. In June, South African investors lost $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin after the founders of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange disappeared. During the same month, British police seized around $158 million in various cryptocurrencies. At that time, it was the largest seizure of such property in the country’s history.
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