The French law enforcement has arrested a 37-year old businessman for worth more than $1.3 million from his former business partners.
As reported by LeParisien, the accused founded a company along with his two friends in 2013, however, after three years he was fired from the company due to disagreement over business strategy.
As he was aware of the internal operations of the company, he started to slowly siphon Bitcoins, but not making any large transactions which would raise an alarm.
The theft was brought to light when the company employees noticed suspicious transfers from its Bitcoin wallet between December 2018 to January 2019. This, according to the local report is the case in France to date.
The investigation led to the perpetrator as the authorities found the Bitcoin wallet addresses from which the funds were withdrawn belonged to the co-founders of the company.
After the arrest, the accused also admitted that he siphoned the funds from his business partners “out of revenge” for his dismissal from the company.
The French authorities brought charges of theft, money laundering, and fraudulent changes to the automated data processing system.
Will the court recognize Bitcoin?
Though charges resemble any other theft case, it has the potential to make a major impact as the French law does not recognize digital assets as “money” yet.
Residing abroad, the perpetrator was detained on December 22, up to his arrival in his home country. Despite the prosecutor’s push for a permanent arrest, he was released by the court authorities and kept under “strict judicial supervision.”
Earlier this month, US law enforcement indicted a 19-year-old for stealing crypto using the SIM technique. He worth crypto from victims spread across 20 states in the country.
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