A cyber criminal secured millions of euros in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency with a password that was apparently quite complex – police suspect he may no longer know it himself. Photo: Ina Fassbender / dpa
Campten (dpa / lby) – The Campaign Prosecutor confiscated Bitcoin from a convicted computer fraudster, currently valued at more than 50 million euros. However, the authority cannot access a large chunk of money.
According to a spokesperson, the password for the digital wallet is missing – the previous owner of the cryptocurrency hasn’t revealed it yet. The newspaper “Allgäre Zeitung” first reported on the extraordinary financial problems of the Bavarian police.
The attorney general’s office was able to sell only 86 of the 1,800 bitcoins the fraudster had illegally made on other people’s computers in 2018. The agency raised around 500,000 euros for the state treasury. The remaining 1700 Bitcoins are still in the OTP’s possession without being able to access them yet.
The password has been encrypted multiple times, and IT professionals have yet to crack it, according to the attorney general. In theory, it might also be that the fraudster no longer knows the password himself.
According to the authorities, the computer fraudster is now serving his sentence after his conviction in 2014. However, the man can no longer access bitcoins: Experts from the law enforcement agency have secured the virtual wallet from external access.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210204-99-306019 / 2
