Spanish Police Arrested Hacker Who Stole $1 Billion Using Cryptocurrency

[Goodcat49]

A cybercrime gang leader, involved in stealing upward of $1.2 bln, has been arrested in Alicante, Spain. The gang ,consisting of Russian and Ukrainian nationals, robbed around 100 financial institutions worldwide and covered its tracks with the help of crypto coins.

According to the Spanish newspaper, the criminal group led by Denis K. invaded remotely into bank systems in order to change the state of owners’ accounts, making major transactions, or to change the balance of deposits opened by its members. The stolen money they converted into digital currency.

The hacker has been living in Alicante since October 2014. As investigators reported, he stocked 15 thousand bitcoins. He also had an impressive infrastructure for bitcoin mining, designed to launder funds obtained from illegal activities.

Scam Mechanism
Scammers received access to internal banking networks via phishing emails with malicious attachments they sent to bank officials. Such emails contained a virus that enabled perpetrators to control affected computers. Then they compromised ATMs and used them to withdraw all money.

The cybercriminals didn’t spend the gained cash immediately but instead exchanged it for bitcoins. Once the money was converted to virtual coins, they spent it on different assets, like houses and cars in Spain.

Read the details in the article of Coinidol dot com, the world blockchain news outlet: https://coinidol.com/spanish-police-arrested-hacker/