Israeli authorities have charged Eliyahu Gigi, a 31-year-old Tel Aviv resident, for stealing over 6.1 million NIS (around $1.7 million) in several Cryptocurrencies .
Gigi and his 21-year old brother were arrested last month by Israeli police under the suspicion of stealing cryptocurrency through a phishing scheme, Finance Magnates reported.
According to local news site The Globe, Gigi is charged with several crimes including theft, fraud, and money laundering.
The charges alleged that Gigi managed a number of websites that were used to defraud foreign nationals to steal digital currencies, including Bitcoin , Ethereum, and Dash. He is also charged with carrying out phishing attacks and distributing malware to victims' computers to steal crypto.
The report detailed that to hide the fraudulent activities and stolen funds, Gigi used remote servers and also used other applications and services to hide the tracks of the stolen funds. He also distributed the funds into a number of wallets and converted them other currencies.
Scale down of the involved amount
Though at the time of arrest, it was suspected that the perpetrator was involved in a $100 million worth crypto fraud, the amount drastically decreased in the filed charges.
The fraudster’s activity first alerted the authorities when they were alerted to spam links on digital wallet forums. The report detailed that the links posted by Gigi were redirecting victims to a fake wallet website. The phishing websites collected users' credentials, which Gigi later used to steal crypto from their wallets.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a former Microsoft employee was arrested over the theft of $10 million in crypto. He was accused of stealing cryptocurrency gift cards that were redeemable against Microsoft products and then reselling them on the internet. The perpetrator even used the funds to purchase a $160,000 Tesla car and a $1.7 million lakefront home.
