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AGI – The perpetrator of the largest cyber-financial attack ever carried out in Italy has been identified, as well as one of the largest ever carried out in the world in the cryptocurrency sector. The postal police identified a 34-year-old Florentine as responsible for a € 120 million “hole” in the hacked computer platform “Bitgrail” with which they defrauded more than 230,000 savers. The man is charged with computer fraud, car laundering and fraudulent bankruptcy.
The investigators of the Florence Postal Police and the Financial Cyber Crimes Section of the Central Service of the Postal Police in Rome, of the Guardia di Finanza of the Judicial Police Section of the Public Ministry of Florence, notified him of the precautionary measure of the prohibition to exercise a company and to hold executive positions in companies.
The provision issued by the Florence investigating judge, Gianluca Mancuso, refers to the sole director of an Italian company that manages a cryptocurrency exchange platform.
For the first time in Italy and in Europe, fraud has been documented to the detriment of investors, carried out entirely on computer platforms and with the use of virtual currencies.
The activity is part of a broader strategy aimed at combating economic crime and in particular illegal enrichment through the misuse of online platforms and IT tools, which researchers say are increasing.
The investigation began in February 2018, after the complaint filed by the sole administrator of the exchange platform, for the theft of a large sum in cryptocurrency “NANO” XRP for an approximate value of 120 million euros, carried out exploiting a Nano protocol error and conducting illicit transactions, all related to January 2018.
The man was already known to investigators to whom he provided Bitcoin to pay for the ‘ransoms’ of cryptolocker victims. Investigators became suspicious of him from the early stages of the investigation, despite collaborating not to suggest he was involved in the matter.
The investigations, which lasted for months also with the support of the FBI, with activities of interception and complex computer analysis of the databases of the exchange platform, brought to light the responsibilities of the man and showed that the theft of cryptocurrencies was produced in more resumed, as of June 2017, and that the man knowingly did not prevent them by not implementing the security of the platform with one of the available methods disclosed by Team Nano Developers (American company that created the cryptocurrency), providing thus to hackers, not yet identified, a benefit of about 11,500,000 XRB, equivalent to about 120,000,000 euros, damaging more than 230,000 people worldwide (also with the aggravation of having committed the acts with abuse of the quality of system operator).
By keeping the platform open, despite having identified the illicit withdrawals of Nano Moneta, and not informing the Nano Team, the community and users of the verified stockouts, at least of the large quantity withdrawals that took place in July and October 2017, the man continued to attract new users, which in a few months went from 70,000 to about 217,000, benefiting from the notoriety of being the first and only Italian exchange to deal with XRB (which later became Nano), also taking advantage of the growing increase in the value of the cryptocurrency (just think that between December 14 and 31, 2017 the value of the cryptocurrency XRB Nano goes from 3.17 to 20.45 dollars, with a differential increase higher than that of Bitcoin). And this despite being aware of the lack of funds in XRB sufficient to cover the personal portfolios of the thousands of users of the platform, worldwide, obtaining an unfair profit corresponding to the profits obtained from deposits and trading, which have been increased dramatically in the intermission. between December 2017 and February 2018 precisely in correspondence with the exploitation of XRB (Nano) in the market.
Users who bought XRB Nano, in the period between December 1, 2017 and February 28, 2018, have moved and paid Bitcoin for a value equivalent to 593 and a half million euros. The increased commission of the suspected scammer is paid to this entry and subsequent transactions.
The investigators, with the collaboration of the officials of the FIU (Financial Intelligence Unit) of the Bank of Italy and the PG Section of the Public Ministry of Florence, verified that three days before the presentation of the complaint, the man had transferred to your account. staff, dependent on the digital currency exchange company “The Rock Trading Srl” of Malta, up to 230 cryptocurrencies Bitcoin BTC (which at the exchange rate in the reference period corresponded to approximately 1,700,000 euros), attributable to customers of the exchange platform. 3,652 addresses out of a total of 3,890 (which originated the transactions in the personal account, were found present in the database of the exchange platform, but not detectable when consulting the databases related to traditional monetary and financial assets, for What is Impossible to trace its origin Values that man, in May 2018, partially transformed into legal tender by converting it into the sum of 514 thousand euros through commercial operations.
Several times he tried to withdraw to “empty” the account, but the intervention of the owners of the investigation prevented him from doing so by seizing all the suspect’s accounts, including the results in cryptocurrencies up to the equivalent of 120 million euros.
According to the investigators, it was an unprecedented operation, carried out for the first time in Europe with innovative techniques by the Florence Postal and Communications Police, through the creation of a protocol for the transfer of cryptocurrency that was later hijacked.
