£20M Bitcoin Heist: Gang's Lavish Spending Spree Leads To Sentencing Of Four Accomplices

Four individuals were sentenced by the English County of Lancashire following an investigation into a £20 million Bitcoin BTC/USD fraud.

The fraud began in 2017 when James Parker, the alleged gang leader, discovered a glitch in an Australian cryptocurrency trading website that allowed him to steal money.

He and his accomplices then siphoned off more than £20 million worth of credits over a three-month period.

Parker's financial advisor, Stephen Boys, who earned the nickname "Rodney" from "Only Fools and Horses," helped launder the stolen funds.

The scam generated so much money that £5,000 gift cards were handed out to people on the street and cars were bought for people Parker met in a pub.

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Boys admitted in court how he took £1 million cash in a suitcase to buy a villa from Russians he met in the back office of an estate agent and paid £60,000 to pay off corrupt officials so he could carry on laundering money.

During the investigation, police recovered 445 Bitcoin, then worth £22 million, along with luxury watches, houses, cars and designer goods, including a £600 wine cooler, along with more than £1 million in bank accounts.

The assets will be returned to the victims.

Lancashire Police worked closely with international law enforcement, including in Australia and Finland, as well as the Crown Prosecution Service to bring the gang to justice.

Det. Sgt. David Wainwright of Lancashire Police’s Fraud Unit said: “The scale of the fraud in this case is absolutely staggering and led to the suspects literally having more money than they could spend. I would like to pay tribute to all the agencies who worked closely together to bring these people to justice.”

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