British police to return $22.2 million of cryptocurrency stolen in a scam

British authorities identified suspects behind a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading and custody service who subsequently misappropriated users’ funds. This was reported on the Greater Manchester Police site.

According to the agency, the victims believed they were depositing funds into a service on Binance Smart Chain. Subsequently, the perpetrators transferred all the money to their own accounts.

Law enforcement located the alleged organizers of the scheme in Manchester and traced them. Police confiscated a USB drive, with which they recovered the stolen funds totaling $9.5 million in Ethereum. Subsequently, officers gained access to a further $12.7 million.

The amount accounts for 90% of the stolen funds. Police have begun locating the cryptocurrency owners and intend to return the assets. Preliminary data indicate the victims were residents of the United Kingdom, the United States, the EU, China, Australia and Hong Kong.

Authorities have detained two suspects. Journalist Colin Wu, citing sources, reported that all the alleged scheme organizers are from Hong Kong, with three more people still at large.

British police arrested A 23-year-old male and a 25-year-old female, and recovered more than 22.2 million US dollars. They are suspected of implementing rugpull of StableMagnet Finance. This may be the largest DeFi case uncovered by the police. https://t.co/e2hpzknM2G

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 12, 2021

According to Wu, the project in question is StableMagnet Finance. The scam was reported in June.

Worse, StableMagnet Swap has been approved by many users to move funds: If you interacted with it before, REVOKE NOW (@rugdocio)

Token Approval Checker: https://t.co/n0q58A8gJ1
Unrekt: https://t.co/yPyYKmal7q
Beefy: https://t.co/Mu0WyWGjIU
Debank: https://t.co/SQyi9KdOQA

— PeckShield Inc. (@peckshield) June 23, 2021

‘This could be the police’s largest DeFi-related case,’ Wu wrote.

In June, the London police, as part of a money-laundering investigation, seized around $158 million in cryptocurrency, and in July reported the seizure of another approximately $250 million in digital assets.

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