A Finnish millionaire has been conned out of $35 million worth of bitcoin by cryptocurrency scammers in Thailand, according to a local report.
22-year-old Aarni Otava Saarimaa lost 5,564.4 bitcoins, according to the Bangkok Post, after inadvertently sending them to fraudsters in the country.
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Mr Saarimaa believed he was investing in a new cryptocurrency called Dragon Coin, as well as a casino.
On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled ‘Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’
Reuters
On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins – the equivalent of $90 million at today’s prices
Lazlo Hanyecz
Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin
On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash
REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis
The world’s biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed
Getty Images
In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim
Getty Images
On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash
REUTERS
Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year
Reuters
On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled ‘Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’
Reuters
On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins – the equivalent of $90 million at today’s prices
Lazlo Hanyecz
Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin
On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash
REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis
The world’s biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed
Getty Images
In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim
Getty Images
On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin’s underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash
REUTERS
Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year
Reuters
A six-month investigation by Thailand’s Crime Suppression Division (CSD) uncovered a group of nine people who used the cryptocurrency to convert the funds into local currency and invest in land.
Among the suspects in the plot is 27-year-old soap actor Jiratpisit ‘Boom’ Jaravijit, who was arrested by local police while filming in Bangkok, as well as several of his siblings.
“This case is complicated. We had to carefully examine documents and trace the money trail,” CSD deputy commander Pol Col Chakrit Sawasdee told the Bangkok Post.
“For the money laundering charge, we are verifying the amount of money with commercial banks only in the accounts of the siblings and their family and relatives. The money needs to be frozen and brought back to the victims.”
The CSD said a total of 51 bank accounts have been frozen and several plots of land believed to have been acquired with the stolen money were also seized.
Investigators say that enquiries have been complicated by the use of cryptocurrency, which allows funds to be tracked through the blockchain but is semi-anonymous by design.
“We had to carefully examine documents and trace the money trail,” Mr Chakrit said. “It took us almost seven months to get approval for the arrest warrants.”
It is not the first time local celebrities have been caught up in cryptocurrency scams, with several Bollywood actors in India implicated in a $300 million scheme earlier this year.