British police have seized Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies worth millions of dollars as part of a money laundering investigation.
According to Lincolnshire Police, detectives have seized more than 48 Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto assets from a 17-year-old schoolboy concerned about credit card fraud and cash laundering.
“Intelligence advised the suspect involved in credit card fraud and theft of non-public data to defraud a company virtual gift voucher at around £6,000 ($6,932).
Detectives then exposed links to cash-laundering cryptocurrencies, prompting new investigations and resulting in the seizure of more than 48 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The miner set up a fake phishing to look like a gift voucher site, called Love2Shop, in April 2020, according to a local newspaper The Lincolnite.
A further investigation revealed that the minor, who may not be identified for legal reasons, found that he owned more than 12,000 credit card numbers and 197 PayPal accounts.
The prosecutor in the case, Sam Skinner, said the miner shifted profits from the fraud to crypto assets.
“He had earned his PayPal accounts between January and March 2020 totalling £323,000 [$373,196]. These sums reached his account and were transferred to the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin is trading at $61,200 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko. The seized BTC is approximately $2,937,000.
The teenager, who recently read for his degree of complex points (point A), was first arrested in August 2020 and charged with “fraud by misrepresentation and money laundering. “
Lincoln Crown Court granted a fore order and sentenced the juvenile to a rehabilitation order for 12-month-olds (a supervised, non-custodial network sentence for juvenile offenders) and hours of unpaid work.
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