The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has sentence four Brits to a total of 15 years in prison after they stole and laundered £21 million worth of cryptocurrency from an Australian crypto exchange.

Stephen William Boys,58, Kelly Caton, 44, Jordan Kane Robinson, 23, and James Austin-Beddoes, 27, were found guilty of fraud and converting and transferring criminal property at Preston Crown Court.

“These offenders used the internet from the comfort of their own homes to obtain tens of millions of pounds worth of Bitcoin which did not belong to them,” said Jonathan Kelleher, CPS. “Cyber-enabled crime presents an increasing threat to international economic stability, as well as to honest individual investors in cryptocurrency.”

The CPS worked alongside Australian and Finnish authorities to build the case against the offenders.

According to the agency, all four criminals were associates of James Parker who masterminded the crime from his home in Blackpool for a three-month period in October 2017 to January 2018.

Parker, who died before he could be prosecuted, exploited a loophole on the crypto exchange platform which allowed him and the four offenders to "dishonestly obtain credits" worth more than £20 million. He dishonestly obtained crypto assets worth £15 million from his trading account, while associates Caton and Robinson withdrew £2.7 million and £1.7million respectively.

Boys, who was Parker's financial adviser, worked with a Kambi– a Brit based in Dubai–to convert the cryptocurrency into cash.

The money was then laundered through several foreign based online accounts.

The CPS said that a "very significant" amount of laundered money has been returned, or is in the process of being recovered on behalf of the Australian exchange.

Share Story: