The Israeli authorities have charged Eliyahu Gigi, a 31-year old Tel Aviv resident, for stealing over 6.1 million NIS (around $1.7 million) in several cryptocurrencies.
Gigi and his 21-year old brother were arrested last month by the Israeli police under the suspicion of stealing cryptocurrency through a phishing scheme, .
According to the local news agency The Globe, Gigi is charged with several crimes including theft, fraud, and money laundering.
The charges alleged that Gigi managed a number of websites which were used to defraud many foreign nationals to steal digital currencies which include Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dash. He is also charged for carrying out to victims computers to steal crypto.
The report detailed that to hide the fraudulent activities and stolen funds, Gigi used remote servers and also used other applications and services to hide the tracks of ill-gotten cryptos. He also distributed the funds into a number of wallets and even converted them other currencies.
Scale down of the involved amount
Though at the time of arrest, it was suspected that the perpetrator was involved in $100 million worth crypto fraud, the amount drastically decreased in the filed charges.
The fraudster’s activity first alerted the authorities when they received lead of some spam links on digital wallet forums. The report detailed that the links posted by Gigi were redirecting victims to some fake wallet downloadable website. The phishing websites collected their credentials which Gigi later used to steal crypto from the wallets.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a former Microsoft employee was arrested over . He was accused of stealing cryptocurrency gift cards that were redeemable against Microsoft products and then reselling them on the internet. The perpetrator even used the ill-gotten funds to purchase a $160,000 Tesla car and a $1.7 million lakefront home.
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