Former CEO of now-defunct crypto exchange WEX, a spin-off of controversial BTC-e exchange, was arrested in Italy. No official statement to date Dmitri Vasilyev, who reopened BTC-e exchange as WEX.nz in September 2017, was detained by Italian prosecutors. While no official statement has been disclosed to date, BBC Russia reported the arrest on July 19. In the report, the publication cited an unnamed friend of Vasilev and two anonymous WEX investors. The reason for detention remains unclear. In April 2019, Vasilyev became the subject of a criminal investigation by the police department in Kazakh city Almaty, as the alleged suspect …

A gang of masked men have raided a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange in the English city of Birmingham, sparking a police investigation. Local Facebook page Brumz Updates posted footage of the burglars ransacking the building as sirens blared on July 15. Witnesses look on helplessly as the robbery unfolds — and seconds later, the gang speed away from the scene in a waiting car. West Midlands Police has launched an investigation, but have confirmed that nothing of value was stolen from the business. According to the Daily Mail, the thieves had attempted to steal a Bitcoin ATM using a rope attached …

Police in China arrested 22 suspects allegedly involved in illegal crypto mining activity that led to energy loss worth of about $3 million, reports XinhuaNet, the official press agency of China, on July 12. Police in Jiangsu, China’s eastern-central coastal province, have reportedly seized 4,000 hardware units that were illegally used to mine cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin (BTC) at nine factories. According to the report, Jiangsu police launched a criminal investigation after a local power firm reported an abnormal spike in electricity consumption. After almost two months of investigation, the police in the city of Zhenjiang in Jiangsu detected a …

Spanish law enforcement pointed out that Bitcoin (BTC) automated teller machines (ATMs) show a gap in European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, Bloomberg reports on July 11. Per the report, Spanish police uncovered a local gang that used Bitcoin ATMs to transfer more than 9 million euros ($10 million) for drug traffickers in Colombia and other countries. Bloomberg cites anonymous representatives of Guardia Civil (a type of Spanish law enforcement) alleging that the group hired two machines from trading platforms and installed them in an office in Madrid. The office in question masqueraded as a center for remittances and cryptocurrency …

Vanuatu, a Pacific Island country, has extradited six Chinese citizens to the mainland, according to a report by Odaily Planet Daily on July 10. The suspects were reportedly arrested in the course of an ongoing investigation of the PlusToken cryptocurrency platform which, according to the Yancheng Public Security Bureau, is a pyramid scheme. As per the report, the Yancheng police in China have confirmed that they cooperated with local Vanuatu police to extradite six suspects associated with the PlusToken fund. The individuals were reportedly arrested by Vanuatu authorities at Chinese police’s request, and later released to China following negotiations. The …

Dutch ministers have urged the government to regulate cryptocurrencies and certain cash payments over money laundering concerns in a statement on July 1. The officials said that the government should ban cash payments over 3,000 euros, regulate cryptocurrencies and ban 500 euro banknotes, as these instruments can purportedly facilitate money laundering. The Netherlands do not recognize cryptocurrency as a legal currency, although last year a Dutch court found bitcoin (BTC) to be a legitimate “transferable value” in a penalty payment case. According to the statement, Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra and Minister of Justice and Security Ferdinand Grapperhaus sent the …

Europol, in conjunction with the United Kingdom’s South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit, the Dutch police, Eurojust, and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA), has coordinated the arrests of six people suspected of stealing over $27 million in cryptocurrency, according to a press release on June 25. The attackers reportedly were involved in typosquatting, a fraudulent means to steal credentials by setting up a scam website with a similar name to an established one—hence the “typo” in “typosquatting”—and then recording login data. In this case, the report notes that Europol believes the hackers were able to use typosquatting to steal …

Police in China have reportedly gathered evidence of people laying cables via fish ponds to steal oil well power to fuel their bitcoin (BTC) mining. The news was reported by daily Chinese tabloid The Global Times on June 13. The Global Times is published under the auspices of state-backed newspaper group The People’s Daily. The report outlines that the Green Grassland Police Station of the Qiqihar District Public Security Bureau were alerted to the alleged power theft after receiving a call from the head of oil production at Daqing Oil Field — the largest oil field in China, located in …

Police in Russia have arrested an alleged creator of a crypto pyramid scheme from Kazakhstan who was facing an international arrest warrant, Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MOI) officially reported on May 28. The unnamed detainee is reportedly accused of defrauding investors using a scam crypto scheme promising high returns from crypto investments, involving a group of criminals. The MOI reported at least 300 fraud cases allegedly connected with the pyramid scheme, with one of the investors having reportedly lost around 14 million Kazakhstan tenge ($36,700) to the criminals. According to the report, the intruder fled Kazakhstan in early 2019 …

Disclaimer. This article has been updated to change the amount involved in the fraud case, as it was misreported in an English version of a Dutch article on the subject. Dutch police have arrested a former entrepreneur for fraud after alleging he conned investors in a fake bitcoin (BTC) mining operation out of €23 million ($25 million), Dutch daily news outlet De Gelderlander reported on May 21. According to reports, Barry van Mourik, who previously ran another cryptocurrency company also under suspicion, deceived clients into thinking they would earn money from bitcoin mining. Posing as the operator of a mining …

An Australian government employee will reportedly face court today over his alleged misuse of government IT systems to mine cryptocurrency for personal gain. The news was announced by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on May 21. The AFP alleges that the 33-year old man, whose name was not disclosed, used his access as an IT contractor to “manipulate programs to use the processing power of the agency’s computer network for crypto currency mining.” The alleged profits from his illicit mining activities reportedly amounted to AU$9,000 (~$6,200). The man’s appearance before the Sydney Local Court follows an AFP search operation of …

German police, along with Europol, have shut down servers of a dark web marketplace and seized six figures in crypto from the arrested suspects, Europol announced on May 3. The Wall Street Market, reportedly the world’s second-largest dark web market, has been shut down by the German Federal Criminal Police under the authority of the German Public Prosecutor’s office. According to the report, German authorities arrested three suspects and seized over 550,000 euros ($615,000) in cash along with bitcoin (BTC) and monero (XMR) in six figure amounts (actual value unspecified) as well as several cars, computers, hard drives and other …