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A court in Finland has jailed the Hack er responsible for blackmailing 30,000 psychotherapy patient s for more than $500,000 in bitcoin , sentencing him to six years and nine months in prison.  Julius Kivimäki threatened to extort the Vastaamo psychotherapy center out of 40 bitcoins in 2018 after hacking into its database and stealing patient notes. He then blackmailed individual patients by threatening to release their notes unless a smaller bitcoin ransom was paid. Kivimäki denies the charges.   One suicide has reportedly been linked to Kivimäki’s extortion attempts while one victim told the BBC, “The main thing is that this absolutely empathy-lacking, ruthless criminal gets a prison sentence.” Did law enforcement in Finland crack Monero’s privacy technologies? Read more: Finnish police can’t find suspected bitcoin blackmailer they just released “After this, there rise thoughts about how short the conviction is when reflected against the n...

Three individuals have been arrested for de fraud ing New York-area banks of over $10 million by exploiting security vulnerabilities and converting the stolen funds into crypto . In a major fraud case, Zhong Shi Gao, Naifeng Xu and Fei Jiang are charged with tricking New York City-based banks into giving them more than $10 million from 2018 to 2022. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams revealed this scam, highlighting serious issues in bank security and the misuse of crypto currencies. The three men fooled banks by pretending to be victims of fake money transfers. By doing this, the banks gave the perpetrators money to cover for fake transfers, doubling the conspirators’ money. You might also like: SFC releases updated AML/CFT checklist for virtual asset service providers The criminals elected to turn the stolen funds into cryptocurrency thereafter, believing digital currencies could better hide their actions. Williams went on to point out that law enforcement can still t...

There is no clear downward trend in crypto crime, but a quiet month is undoubtedly more than welcome in the Web3 community. Web3 theft hit a low point for the year so far in October, CertiK reported. Losses to hacks, exploits and scams confirmed by the blockchain security firm amounted to $32.2 million for the month across 38 incidents, with no single incident leading to a loss of over $7 million. Compared to the ten-month total of $1.4 billion, losses in October were approximately a quarter of the running monthly average. January showed the second-lowest losses at $33.7 million. The October statistics were not the result of a steady decline in losses but rather show a lack of major incidents that month. October’s 38 incidents were a quantitative low as well. Major Web3 incidents in October. Source: CertiKAlert X account Certik’s third-quarter report indicated the number of incidents in July was 79, falling to 66 in August and 39 in September. Only exit scams were up in October and...

The LastPass hack claimed 25 victims on Oct. 25th, draining $4.4 million from several crypto wallets. The LastPass hack from earlier this year continues to incur significant losses for its users. On Oct. 25, around $4.4 million was drained from over 25 victims due to a vulnerability exploit in the LastPass password management system. Just on October 25, 2023 alone another ~$4.4M was drained from 25+ victims as a result of the LastPass hack. Cannot stress this enough, if you believe you may have ever stored your seed phrase or keys in LastPass migrate your crypto assets immediately. pic.twitter.com/26HsxrlnCb — ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 27, 2023 The LastPass hack involved unauthorized access to user accounts, leading to significant financial losses for crypto owners who stored their wallet keys in the application. The cybercriminals behind the attack appear to have specifically targeted seed phrases and wallet keys, as crypto exfiltration seems to be their primary goal....

China-based suppliers of chemicals used solely to produce fentanyl are receiving tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency payments, fueling the ongoing fentanyl epidemic in the United States, according to a report by Elliptic. Research conducted by the analytics firm identified over 90 China-based chemical companies willing to supply fentanyl precursors who altogether had received $27 million in crypto payments — some were ready to sell fentanyl itself, despite China’s regulations banning the export of the deadly drug. In recent years, Mexican drug cartels have filled the void by manufacturing their own fentanyl using precursor chemicals imported from China. To disrupt the financial activities of fentanyl traffickers and their supply networks, the US government has increased its efforts to hold these criminals accountable. In April, the US Department of the Treasury sanctioned several individuals and businesses in China for supplying precursor chemicals to Mexican drug ...

A Crypto scam targeting victims in Scotland has defrauded a cancer patient out of his retirement funds and drained the pension pot of a lorry driver, after convincing 30 people to invest in a fake Crypto currency trading software. As reported by the Daily Record, both 66-year-old Tom Roberts and 57-year-old Alan Gow have been scammed by Safe Holdings, a purported trading firm offering software that analyzes crypto markets. The pair lost £10,000 and £3,500 respectively after being convinced to let the firm trade on crypto markets for them. They’re part of a group of 30 investors who claim to have been scammed. A man using the name Chris O’Brien reportedly runs the Crypto scheme. It’s said he relies on word of mouth via WhatsApp to recruit new investors, and prior investors make a profit as long as they keep recruiting. ‘O’Brien’ asks users to create two accounts, one on his site and one with Starling Bank. Users then transfer funds to the cryptocurrency account wher...