14 DAY TRIAL // Authorities in China have arrested three individuals suspected of being behind the online Bitcoin trading platform GBL. The operators of the service vanished in late October with their customers’ Bitcoins.
Now that the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed, cybercriminals are targeting processors to make a quick profit. However, that’s not the only problem faced by people who have invested in the currency. Scammers are also targeting their assets.
For instance, a large amount of Bitcoins have been reportedly stolen from the Sheep Marketplace, the underground service that replaced Silk Road. Many believe that the service’s operators have taken off with their money and blamed someone else for the heist.
The story with GBL is somewhat similar, only that in this case, the service had been considered a legitimate company until its owners decided to take off with investors’ funds.
When the platform was shut down, the site’s homepage was defaced to make it look like it was targeted by hackers. However, after seeing that they couldn’t reach anyone at GBL, people soon realized that they had been scammed.
Some of the victims filed complaints with the police and an investigation was launched.
According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, three suspects have been detained in various parts of China in mid-November. They are a 29-year-old man named Liu, who allegedly operated the service; Jin, 24, in charge of daily operations; and Huang, 33, responsible for financial management.
It’s believed that the suspects stole around 25 million yuan ($4.1 million / €3.06 million). Looking back at the incident, there were some signs that GBL’s owners were planning something right from the start.
For instance, they never provided a real contact address, and they limited the amount of money users could withdraw from their accounts.
The investigation into this case is ongoing.