According to the news published by the local news outlet Sabah, on February 12, 2019, the Turkish police arrested 24 hackers who, in the past, stole 13 million Turkish lira (equal to $2.47 million) from a Turkish cryptocurrency company.
Cryptocurrency is a type of encrypted currency whose main feature is the security of its trading space. The first cryptocurrency introduced to the market was Bitcoin.
After receiving reports from the cryptocurrency company, The Turkish Police investigated the matter and came to the conclusion that the stolen money was moved from hacked accounts to accounts in other exchanges. This stolen money was in different cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP).
As it turned out, the suspects communicated with each other through the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG).
Moreover, in order to arrest them, the Turkish police investigated 8 Turkish cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Afyonkarahisar, Bursa, Edirne, Bolu and Antalya.
After arresting the thieves, police forces were able to confiscate about 54000 Lira (equal to $10,000) in cash, and 1.3 million Lira (equal to $246000) in cryptocurrencies and return them to their owners.
The suspects were moved to the Çağlayan police station, two of whom were released immediately and the other 22 were moved to court, and after legal procedures, 6 of them were imprisoned, and 16 were released.
New Zealand police has recently announced that the Cryptopia cryptocurrency exchange that was attacked by hackers in the past is trying to reopen and resume operations despite problems such as inactivity of its website and social media.
Furthermore, Motherboard news agency which is a sub-branch of the Oweis news outlet, reported on February 1, that a 20-year-old American hacker named Goel Ortiz was arrested on the charge of stealing $5 million in cryptocurrencies from 40 victims. He hacked cryptocurrency exchanges through sim-swap technique. By the judgment of the court, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Sim-swap is a technique used by hackers to steal fiat money, cryptocurrencies and people’s social media accounts. Most of these stolen cases are then sold in the black market.
In the sim-swap technique, the hacker pretends to be the original owner and makes contact with the service provider company. Then using information such as social security code and address of the victim, the hacker tries to convince the service provider company that he is the original owner of the sim card and that he has lost it. Then, without any suspicion arising from the service provider, the hacker requests that his number be moved to a new sim card.
Finally, when the service provider moves the number to a new sim card, hackers can complete the two-step verification of the victim’s account using the phone as a retrieval method, and engage in stealing. In an interview that Motherboard conducted with a hacker, it is said that a hacker can access all accounts of a person using his phone number, and that person cannot do a thing about it.
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