A suspect being held in connection with a massive Bitcoin miner theft in Iceland earlier this year has escaped prison, local news the Iceland Monitor reports April 17.
Sindri Þór Stefánsson escaped from from Sogni prison last night and police have confirmed that he fled Iceland to Stockholm, Sweden. The fugitive was reportedly using another man’s passport when he boarded a flight at Keflavik International Airport.
By the time police ascertained that Stefánsson had boarded a plane to Sweden, he had already landed. Icelandic police are currently coordinating with Swedish authorities to apprehend Stefánsson. An international arrest warrant has been issued. The suspect is not considered to be dangerous.
Stefánsson had been in custody since Feb. 2 on suspicion of his involvement in a series of burglaries, wherein 600 PCs, 600 graphics cards, 100 power supplies, 100 motherboards, 100 memory discs, and 100 CPU processors had been taken from data centers involved in cryptocurrency mining in the South West and North West of Iceland. The burglaries took place from Dec. 5 2017 to Jan. 16, 2018.
The aggregate value of the stolen items was estimated at 200 million krónur, or $1,990,000. Iceland Magazine called the incident “one of the largest criminal cases in Icelandic history.” While the suspects have been uncooperative and authorities have not yet located the stolen hardware, local news Fréttablaðið reports that local authorities are going to move forward with an indictment at the beginning of next week.
Earlier this month, the Criminal Investigation Department in Gujarat, India began investigating 10 police officers for extorting 200 Bitcoins from a businessman. Sailesh Bhatt alleges that he was beaten, kidnapped and taken to a farm where he was forced to send the Bitcoins to his former business partner.