The IOTA community was able to help gather enough evidence to allow authorities to catch an alleged hacker who stole over $11 million MIOTA tokens in early 2018. The suspect was apprehended by German Police and Europol at the end of January.
IOTA said in a blog post that it was “proud to see collaboration between so many different entities” that led to the arrest of a 36-year old man from Oxford, England. The range of the collaboration encompassed the IOTA community, especially the people on the Discord #support channel, the HelloIOTA forum, German Police, as well as crypto exchanges which provided valuable information.
It was reported, on Jan. 30, that most of the roughly $11 million in the company’s cryptocurrency stolen from 85 investor’s wallets have been found. This was followed a week later by the arrest of the purported hacker, who is said to have been working alone using seed-generators found online to steal the funds.
“From what we know, just a small amount of the €10 million has not been found,” Dominik Schiener, IOTA co-founder and co-chairman of its board, said in an interview with Reuters last week. “The exchanges have blocked the hacker’s accounts. He tried to free the money, but he did not succeed.”
The investigation began in early 2018 when the Hessen State Police received complaints of money stolen from cryptocurrency wallets. Further investigations showed the evidence of fraud originating from the website Iotaseed.io, targeting users of the IOTA cryptocurrency.
The IOTA Foundation has also said that those who believe they are a victim of this crime should reach out to the local police for more information as the full trial begins.
“Patience is paramount at this time, as everyone is entitled to have a fair trial and defense,” the foundation added.
It seems that hacking for cryptocurrency doesn’t always go undetected. With enough attention and community effort, there’s a chance to catch some of these cybercriminals.
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