Errors that unmasked Oxford cryptocurrency thief Wybo Wiersma

First, the pseudonym he used to arrange the web site iotaseed.io – Norbert Van Den Berg – was discovered amongst his college coursework.

The primary cryptocurrency trade he used to try to launder the stolen Iota foreign money grew to become suspicious and froze 4 accounts.

READ MORE: Jail for computer genius who stole Iota cryptocurrency

And in an try and try to get them unfrozen, he despatched the Bitfinex trade photos of two completely different males who supposedly held two completely different accounts.

The lads had been holding paper marked with the date, and Wiersma despatched photos of identification paperwork of their identify and bearing their likeness.

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The ID paperwork had been discovered to be forgeries.

One of many males was supposedly a Belgian nationwide; however the silhouette define supposedly of Belgium in his passport was the improper form.

One other picture, despatched to the second crypto trade Binance after they froze his account, purported to indicate a person with a UK passport. Once more, the ID doc was discovered to be a forgery.

READ MORE: Live updates from sentencing of Iota thief

When officers raided his dwelling in Park City in January 2019, the discovered his desktop pc open. That meant, in contrast to his laptop computer and greater than half a dozen storage units, they had been in a position to bypass the Oxford post-grad’s uncrackable encryption.

This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the crew in 2021 as Oxfordshire’s courtroom and crime reporter.  

To get in contact with him e-mail: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Observe him on Twitter: @t_seaward