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Three individuals from Bulgaria were arrested for the alleged theft of nearly $ 5 million in crypts like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Three Bulgarians arrested for cryptography theft
The Bulgarian authorities have arrested and indicted three suspects with the alleged theft of $ 5 million in cryptocurrencies, according to the indictment, and the interior ministry – a branch of the Bulgarian government responsible for maintaining order and maintenance of the law.
Second Reuters, the police were able to seize almost $ 3 million of cryptocurrencies, computers used by suspects for cyber theft, as well as additional evidence including notebooks that suspects kept track of the real and fake names they were using as part of their scheme.
The investigation also led prosecutors to believe that the fraud was highly advanced, using "innovative methods and specialized software for theft".
Bulgaria adds to the biggest HODL stack in the world
The value of $ 3 million of cryptocurrencies seized by Bulgarian officials could be added to the country's growing cryptocurrency reserve. In mid-2017, Bulgarian officials made a series of arrests that culminated in the seizure of over 213,000 BTC.
It is said that Bulgaria is sitting on one of the world's worlds most of the Bitcoin cases Consequently. Only the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, holds more Bitcoin than the European country. The value of Bitcoin from that series of cybercrime bribes amounts to over $ 800 million at today's prices.
However, in December, when Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $ 20,000, the same number of Bitcoins was worth more than $ 4.25 billion.
What Bulgaria intends to do with coins, or if they still own the country, nobody knows. Bitcoin reserves seized from Bulgaria even beat the United States, but the United States sold the Bitcoin auction seized up to the Silk Road case.
Silk Road was an obscure drug market where users could buy marijuana, cocaine and more using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies before it was completed in 2013.
Crypto Theft continues to rise, the downward trend will decrease?
The 3 million dollars stolen in this last example are added to the already massive total of cryptocurrencies stolen throughout the year.
The search for the security firm blockchain CipherTrace revealed that during the first three quarters of 2018, $ 927 million was stolen in cryptocurrencies. The totals of the previous year amounted to $ 266 million, which suggests that the encrypted theft is growing rapidly.
This year, the Japanese exchange Coincheck had over $ 530 million of stolen encryption alone. The Italian Bitgrail exchange lost $ 195 million. The frequency, severity and amount of stolen cryptocurrency are only increasing.
Related reading: Crypto Money Laundering to Reach $ 1.5B in 2018
Things could even be worse than they appear. If the stolen cryptocurrencies were of the same value as the prices at the end of December when they were stolen, this figure would have easily destroyed more than $ 1 billion stolen so far this year. But with the fall in the prices of cryptocurrencies, as well as their value at the time of the theft they help to keep the number tamed.
One thing that has yet to be seen: the continued downward trend and the fall in prices eventually discourage cybercriminals from targeting cryptocurrencies and cryptographic exchanges? We hope that at least one positive will come from a grueling year in the encrypted space.
Shutterstock foreground image.
