17-Year-Old From UK Sets Up Fake Website, Uses Stolen Money to Buy Cryptocurrency

Isabella James, Tech Times 26 October 2021, 11:10 pm

A 17-year-old boy from Lincolnshire in the United Kingdom set up a fake digital gift voucher website and used the proceeds from it to purchase Bitcoin. He used £6,500-worth of the proceeds to buy his cryptocurrency.

The police have seized crypto worth more than £2 million. 12,000 credit card numbers and almost 200 PayPal accounts have also been discovered on his computer.

The teenager has admitted to charges of money laundering and fraud and has been handed a 12-month rehabilitation order. The judge handling the case has ordered that the £2,141,720 (approximately $2.9 million) he benefited be confiscated from his assets.

17-Year-Old From UK Sets Up Fake Website

A 17-year-old boy from the UK has admitted to charges of money laundering and fraud after he was discovered to have set up a fake digital gift voucher website. The boy, who has not been named, used the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is one of the best-known cryptocurrencies in the market. According to Investopedia, "Don't be fooled by stock images of shiny coins emblazoned with modified Thai baht symbols. Bitcoin is a purely digital phenomenon, a set of protocols and processes."

According to a report by the BBC, the teenager set up a fake digital gift voucher website that "was almost identical to the official site of Love2Shop, which sells gift vouchers."

"He stole £6,500 worth of vouchers and used the proceeds to buy Bitcoins," said the BBC. £6,500 is roughly equivalent to $8,900.

The teenager, who is from Lincolnshire, invested in advertising on Google, which ended up boosting his fake website above the real Love2Shop.

£2 million Worth of Crypto Seized

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According to the BBC report, the 17-year-old boy took down his fake site when the real Love2Shop website began investigating. The investigation of Love2Shop was due to a complaint from a customer.

The teenager had been arrested in August 2020. Upon his arrest, the UK police found 48 Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. They also eventually found 12,000 credit card numbers and 197 PayPal accounts stored in his computer.

The 17-year-old admitted to charges of money laundering and fraud, which totalled £6,539. Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight said that the boy "benefited from his crimes by £2,141,720 and ordered that amount to be confiscated from his assets."

Crypto-Related Scams in the Past

There has been a growing number of scams that directly involves or is related to cryptocurrencies as of late.

Back in April, a 17-year-old TikTok influencer issued an apology over the Mando cryptocurrency scam that not only fooled his followers, but also himself.

Many dating app users have also found themselves victimized by scammers who combine crypto with romance scams.

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Written by Isabella James