The police employed mass data screening and analysis to locate Mr Zeng’s whereabouts. While Zeng is originally from Jiangsu Province in East China, the police tracked, located, and arrested him on 29th April in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, South China.
Mr Zeng admitted to having stolen the Bitcoin due to greed following the recent surge in Bitcoin prices. Mr Zeng and his counterparts tricked unsuspecting people into providing email passwords linked to their Bitcoin wallets. Mr Zeng and his associates then used the passwords to steal Bitcoin from the victims’ wallets. For instance, Zeng transferred the Bitcoin from Shan’s wallet to his own 30 times.
Chinese police have kept Mr Zeng in criminal detention, pending further investigation into the Bitcoin theft case.
Cases of Bitcoin theft and general crypto hacks have increased in the recent past. A report by CipherTrace revealed that about $156 million DeFi-related hacks have happened from January 2021 to May 2021 alone. This figure already surpasses the total stolen crypto bounties in 2020, which stands at about $129 million.
Crypto industry players and crypto investors are urged to factor in safeguards such as strong passwords and two-factor authentication to reduce chances of crypto theft and crypto hacks.
Source: [url]https://mycryptoparadise.com/chinese-police-returns-stolen-bitcoin-worth-3-million-yuan-to-owner/[/url]