The cyber crime officials on Thursday arrested a woman who had allegedly stolen 63.54 bitcoins from the company she was working for, and made transactions worth ₹3.6 crore.
According to the police, the accused, identified as Aarushi, had stolen the 24-word passphrase before quitting the job and later traded the cryptocurrency. The passphrase is the key to authenticate bitcoin transactions online.
She worked at a company that dealt with cryptocurrency exchange. “Sixty-four of the 100 bitcoins possessed by the company were stolen,” said the police.
During the course of investigation, it was found that the complainant used to hold hardware wallets in which bitcoins were stored and a 24-word passphrase was written on a piece of paper and stored securely at their house/office banks for which only the complainant and partners had access to.
The crime came to light on March 13, when a company member realised that 64 bitcoins were missing. On further inspection, he realised they had been stolen in two batches: 33.54 bitcoins on January 11 and the remaining on March 11. It was further found that an unknown accused had hacked into their systems and had secured the passphrase.
The police realised that the culprit was familiar with the block-chain technology cryptocurrency transactions and was closely associated with BitCipher company. They suspected a former employee and made a list of suspects, including Aarushi, who on questioning allegedly confessed to the crime.
A hardware wallet is a special type of bitcoin wallet which stores the user’s private keys in a secure hardware device. The bitcoins were returned to the company’s account.
