Chinese authorities have apprehended three suspects in the most prominent cryptocurrency hack that has ever taken place in the country, where nearly 600 million yuan ($87 million) were stolen.
The police closed an investigation which lasted almost six months which involved three men who allegedly were involved in the hack that stole Bitcoin and Ether, according to initial reports made by Huashang News on August 19.
The report further stated that the investigation that led to the arrest of the group of hackers started in March when the cyber theft was reported by the victim. The losses were estimated at that time to a total of 100 million yuan.
“On March 30, 2018, the Xi’an Public Security Bureau received an alarm from the victim Zhang, saying that his personal computer was suspected of being illegally invaded. A large number of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum were looted and the market value reached 100 million yuan. The Municipal Public Security Bureau quickly set up a task force to carry out the investigation,” read the report made by Xinhua.
“Our bureau has not dealt with this kind of case before,” South China Morning Post quotes a police officer stating that “It’s the first virtual currency-related case in Shaanxi.”
After examining over “30,000 pieces of information” which were in relation to the event and the suspects, the culprits were apprehended on Wednesday last week.
After the investigation conducted in association with unnamed websites, police found the suspect named Zhou, who is believed to have forcibly accessed the account and transferred them to his wallet. then the two other accomplices were found, their criminal records show that they are also expert hackers.
“After preliminary investigation, the suspects used remote hacking techniques to remotely control theft of highly secure virtual currency accounts without any operation of the victim, and almost no trace of committing crimes. Rare case.”
The three individuals face charges of involvement in illicit operations on the networks of organizations and personal ones to gain forced access to cryptocurrency holding worth of 600 million yuan, around $ 87 million.
Legal proceedings are still in progress. Although this is not the first case to have hit the country, it is definitely the hack that has made off with the most cryptos.