3 Russian Crypto Thieves Jailed

Crypto theft perpetrators in Russia are subject to prison terms. (Photo; Doc. Makeuseof)

JAKARTA - Three people from Moscow have been found guilty in a criminal case by a Court in the city of Omsk, Russia. They were found guilty of robbery and forgery of documents, and a third person of fraud, after extorting large amounts of digital currency from a man in Siberia.

In July 2021, the three of them traveled all the way from the capital to a Siberian city to follow the victim for about 10 days, checking on the victim's movements and daily routine. On the day of the attack, they stopped the man on the street, showed him a fake ID and forced him into the car.

Then, they made away with 3 million rubles or 40,000 US dollars (equivalent to Rp. 617 million) in cash and forced him to transfer 84 million rubles which was worth 1.1 million US dollars (equivalent to Rp. 16.9 billion) in cryptocurrency, as shown disclosed the local Attorney's Office via Bitcoin.com News.

The court ruled that the three would be sentenced to between six-and-a-half and nine years in a high-security prison. In addition, they also have to compensate for losses suffered by victims. Over the past few years, Russia has seen an increasing number of prosecution cases against those responsible for crypto-related crimes.

In mid-February, two Siberians, Tomsk, will stand trial for a "large-scale robbery" involving the theft of a nearly $5 million cryptocurrency from local miners. In July 2021, masked and armed people robbed a large crypto mining facility near Moscow.

Although Russia is still considering a regulatory approach to decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, financial restrictions imposed on the Ukrainian invasion provide an impetus on efforts to adopt rules for activities and related transactions.

A bill on digital currency mining, which also discusses crypto exchanges and cross-border payments, is currently being reviewed in Russian parliament. Cryptocurrencies have previously been recognized as property.

Crypto-related crimes are increasing in Russia and this shows that regulation and regulation must be needed to prevent such criminal acts. In addition, crimes like this can also harm the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Therefore, the government must consider a wise and measurable approach to regulating the use of cryptocurrencies in their country.