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Russian court sends 3 crypto robbers to high-security prison – Bitcoin News
Three Russians will spend time in a high-security prison for stealing over a million US dollars worth of cryptocurrency from another man. In addition, the court has also ordered them to give the victim full compensation for the damages, the prosecutor’s office reported.
Robbers get prison terms for stealing cryptocurrency in Russia
A court in the Russian city of Omsk has handed down a verdict in a criminal case against three men from Moscow who extorted a large amount of digital currency from a man in Siberia. Two of them have been found guilty of robbery and forgery and the third of fraud.
In July 2021, these individuals learned that a resident of Omsk owned significant crypto funds. They traveled all the way from the capital to the Siberian city where they followed the victim for about 10 days, examining his movements and daily routines.
On the day of the attack, they stopped the man in the street, produced fake IDs and forced him into a car. They later took 3 million rubles ($40,000) in cash and made him transfer another 84 million rubles ($1.1 million) in cryptocurrency, the regional prosecutor’s office said in a press release.
The robbers were later arrested by the police, but pleaded not guilty. According to the court verdict, they will now serve between six and a half and nine years in a strictly regulated penitentiary colony. The court also ordered them to compensate damages caused to the victim.
There has been an increasing number of cases of prosecuting people responsible for crypto-related crimes in Russia in recent years. In mid-February, Russian crypto media reported that two residents of another Siberian city, Tomsk, will stand trial for “large-scale robbery” involving the theft of nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency from a local miner. In July 2021, masked, armed men robbed a large crypto mining facility near Moscow.
Russia is still mulling its regulatory approach to decentralized cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, with financial restrictions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine giving impetus to efforts to adopt rules for related activities and transactions. A draft law on digital currency mining, which also addresses crypto exchange and cross-border payments, is currently under consideration in the Russian parliament. Cryptocurrency has previously been recognized as property.
Do you think Russian law enforcement and the judiciary will continue to prosecute criminals who target crypto assets? Share your thoughts on the topic in the comments section below.
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