• British Royal Court recently sentenced a Ph.D. student of Oxford to four and half years in prison for a 2 million euro crypto scam.
• The 36-year-old student, Wybo Wiersma, created a website that supposedly generated private keys to trade IOTA but it was all a scam.
• He used malicious codes on the website to hijack funds into his private account, converted them to Bitcoin and Monero on Bitfinex, and presented fake passports when they asked him to identify himself.
Crypto Scam by Ph.D Student Sentenced
The British Royal Court recently sentenced a Ph.D. student of Oxford University to four and half years in prison for a 2 million euro crypto scam on January 27th 2021. The 36-year-old student named Wybo Wiersma, a native of Goredijk in the Netherlands, created a website when he was studying at St Cross College which he called iotaseed.io that supposedly generated random 81 character passwords (seeds) allowing users to trade IOTA cryptocurrency.
Malicious Codes Used To Hijack Funds
However, the passwords were predetermined with malicious codes which Wiersma wrote on the website that enabled him access each user’s “seeds” when they carried out transactions and hijack funds into his private account. He then proceeded to convert the stolen funds to Bitcoin and Monero altcoin on the crypto exchange Bitfinex on January 19th 2018 worth about $11 million initially before being caught by Bitfinex who froze his accounts until he identified himself using false passports from Belgium and Australia photogram of an individual named Jason with an Australian passport respectively which he could not present correctly leading Bitfinex unable to identify him thus freezing his accounts indefinitely leading Wiersma losing accesss to these funds forever..
BitFinex Suspicion Leads To Capture
When Wybo Wiersma carried out this activity on BitStarz Player Lands $2,459,124 Record Win! Could you be next big winner? 570% up tot 12 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 1 BTC in bonuses every day only at Wildio Play Now! Subsequently ,Wybo Wiersma converted stolen funds rather suspiciously into Bitcoin and Monero ,an altcoin ,on the crypto exchange BitFinex .This act made BitFinex very suspicious of these activities prompting them freeze his accounts thus rendering him unable accessthese funds until he provides identification through two false passports from Belgiumand Australia photogram of an individual named Jason with an Australian passport respectively none of which could pass verification making it impossible for them unfreeze his accounts permanentlyleading himlose accesss as mentioned earlier .
IOTA Foundation Recovers Part Of Stolen Funds
The IOTA foundation along with other affected crypto exchanges recovered part of the stolen funds after blocking Wybo Wiermsa’s accounts due to the suspicious activity detected when attempting convert stolen money into Bitcoin Monero altcoins .
Conclusion
In conclusion Wybo Weirsma is now facing jail sentence of four and half years due scams related activities including hijacking users’ “seed” passwords accessing their IOTA cryptocurrencies through malicious codes written ontohis website iotaseed.io presenting false passports from Belgiumand Australiaphotograms individual named Jason with an Australian passport respectively thus fooling authorities temporarily until apprehended by law enforcement agencies brought justice served upon him .