Florence, 21 December 2020 – Authorized by the postal policeand more major cyber-financial attack in Italy, one of the largest ever made in the world in the cryptocurrency sector. The investigators of the Florence Postal Police and the Financial Cybercrime Section of the Central Service of the Postal Police in Rome, with the help of the Financial Police of the Judicial Police Section of the Florence Public Prosecutor’s Office, carried out the measure of the prohibition to exercise of business and to hold executive offices of companies in respect of of FF, 34, from the province of Florence, sole director of an Italian company that manages a cryptocurrency exchange platform (exchange), held responsible for a € 120 million IT fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy and self-laundering. The provision was issued by the gup Gianluca Mancuso. Over 230 thousand savers scammed.
For the first time in Italy and in Europe, fraudulent and distracting conduct to the detriment of investors has been documented, carried out entirely on IT platforms and the use of virtual currencies. The activity is part of a broader strategy aimed at combating economic crime and in particular illegal enrichments through the improper use of online platforms and IT tools that the investigations carried out reveal an increasing increase, developed by the Florence Public Prosecutor. , headed by chief prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo, who entrusted the investigation to the deputy Luca Tescaroli and to the deputy prosecutor Sandro Cutrignelli of the IT Crimes Department, and to the deputy prosecutor Gabriele Mazzotta and to the deputy Fabio Di Vizio of the Corporate and Bankruptcy Crimes Department.
The complex and delicate investigation carried out by the Florence Compartment, with the productive collaboration of the financiers working at the Florentine Public Prosecutor’s Office, it was launched in February 2018, following a complaint presented by FF, sole administrator of the exchange platform, relating to the theft of a large sum of the cryptocurrency called ‘Nano’ XRP for a value of about 120 million euros, made by exploiting a bug in the Nano protocol and carrying out illegal transactions, all relating to January 2018. The man, already known to investigators as a supplier of virtual currency called Bitcoin (BTC), used as a financial instrument of payment in extortion phenomena related to the cryptolocker virus, despite its apparent collaborative conduct, since the first statements it has induced the investigators not to exclude his active involvement in the affair, especially following conflicting and contradictory statements of the same and of the its collaborating partners.
On the other hand, users to buy XRB Nano, in the period between 1 December 2017 and 28 February 2018, according to what was ascertained by the investigators, moved and paid Bitcoin for a value equivalent to 593,527,000 euros. The increase in the suspect´s commissions is paid to this inflow and the consequent transactions. The investigators also through complex computer investigations and analysis of online banking transactions, with the collaboration of the officers of the UIF (Unit of Financial Information) of the Bank of Italy and of the PG section – Guardia di Finanza rate of the Florence Public Prosecutor’s Office, ascertained that the man, three days before the filing of the complaint, would have transferred to his personal account, hinged at the digital currency exchanger company ‘The Rock Trading Srl’ of Malta as many as 230 cryptocurrencies Bitcoin BTC (which at the exchange rate during the reference amounted to approximately 1,700,000 euros), attributable to the customers of the exchange platform.
Undoubtedly it was an articulated and complex operation, of which there are no precedents, carried out for the first time in Europe with innovative techniques by the Postal and Communications Police of Florence, through the creation of a protocol for the transfer of the cryptocurrency mail under seizure. Moreover, 6 search decrees issued against the suspect and his partners and collaborators were carried out, with the seizure of a large number of IT devices (PC, hard-disk, pendrive).
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