Ex-Microsoft Dev Gets 9 Years in Prison Over $10M Theft Involving Bitcoin Mixing

A U.S. court in Seattle has sentenced a former Microsoft engineer to 9 years in prison after finding him guilty of 18 federal felonies relating to his elaborate scheme to defraud the tech giant $10 million. In passing the judgment, the court blasts Volodymyr Kvashuk, a software engineer and citizen of Ukraine, for attempting to mask digital evidence through the use of bitcoin mixers and the illegal use of accounts and passwords of fellow employees to aid this scheme. Sophisticated case According to court records, Kvashuk, a citizen of Ukraine, had been convicted in February 2020 on several....

Russian authorities have investigated a number of cases involving the theft of crypto mining equipment in the past months. A resident of Yaroslavl has just been found guilty of stealing mining hardware worth over $20,000 and sentenced to three years in prison. Russian Convicted of Stealing Mining Rigs Receives Prison Sentence A 34-year-old man from the city of Yaroslavl, some 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow, has been found responsible for the theft of equipment for cryptocurrency mining. The hardware’s value has been estimated at 1.6 million rubles (almost $22,000),....

A Swedish man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the U.S. for an investment fraud scheme involving cryptocurrency, including bitcoin. He defrauded thousands of victims of more than $16 million. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday that a “cryptocurrency fraudster” has been sentenced to 15 years in prison “for securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering charges that defrauded thousands of victims of more than $16 million.” Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson, a 47-year-old Swedish man, was arrested in Thailand in June 2019. He pleaded guilty....

A Ukrainian national has been sentenced to nine years in prison in what the IRS is describing as the United States’ “first Bitcoin case [with] a tax component.” A former Microsoft engineer has been sentenced to nine years for stealing more than $10 million in digital value from his past employer in the form of “currency stored value" (CSV) including gift cards.Volodymyr Kvashuk, a 26-year-old Ukrainian citizen residing in Washington, used the accounts and identities of his fellow employees to steal and then sell the CSV — making it appear as though his co-workers were responsible for the....

Afek Zard, a resident of Israel, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzling a large sum of cryptocurrency that belonged to a friend of his. The man, who refused to cooperate with the investigation, will have to pay a hefty fine as well. Israeli Resident Sentenced for Cryptocurrency Theft The 27-year-old Zard received the sentence from the Be’er Sheva District Court, Israeli news outlet Ynet reported this week. According to the website, Zard stole 75,000 DASH worth an estimated 22 million Israeli shekels ($6.8 million). The fiat equivalent dates back to the time the....