According to the BBC, the Preston Crown Court sentenced the four masterminds behind a huge Bitcoin fraud scheme to prison on Tuesday. Jordan Kane Robinson, Stephen William Boys, Kelly Caton, and James Austin-Beddoes were sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison for unlawfully obtaining and laundering millions of pounds in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from an exchange in Australia. The transactions involved up to £21 million in unlawful earnings, with substantial sums of money laundered through offshore accounts. The hoax was masterminded by James Parker, a British resident who died in 2021. Parker discovered a flaw in a bitcoin trading platform that allowed him to fraudulently obtain a large sum of cryptocurrency.
Robinson and Caton, Parker’s accomplices, stole £2.7 million and £1.7 million, respectively. The group collaborated with Parker’s financial adviser, Stephen Boys, who is said to have coordinated the actions of overseas actors in order to convert the stolen cryptocurrency into cash, which was subsequently laundered through several foreign accounts. A representative of the Crown Prosecution Service has come out in support of this judgment, stating that much of the illegal earnings made by these criminals will be recovered or have already been refunded to the Australian cryptocurrency exchange harmed by this scheme.
