Indian authorities apprehended a woman in Bengaluru for the alleged theft of $480,000 worth of Bitcoin from a crypto exchange she co-founded. It is said that the suspect stole 63.5 Bitcoins from Bitcipher Labs, the crypto exchange, on the month of January and March respectively.
Ayushi Jain, the 26-year-old suspect, was found to have made away with the Bitcoin from Bitcipher Labs’ hardware wallets. The time of arrest came hot in the heels of a complaint filed by the crypto exchange’s Chief Executive after he detected two unauthorized transactions.
From the early onset of the case, it became likely that the suspect had a very good command of technology and prior experience with the crypto exchange.
The Investigation
A statement from the Bengaluru Investigation Department intimated that a probe into the matter showed that the complainant possessed a number of hardware wallets with Bitcoins. He also had a 24-word password scribbled on a paper.
The police found out that the culprit managed to manipulate the crypto hardware wallet and access the Bitcoin using the wallet’s actual password.
The success of the police investigation was actualized by the tracking process that the investigation team used. A list was compiled of all the crypto exchange’s employees to try and establish a trail of information.
Through findings, Ayushi was identified as a potential suspect, considering the fact that she had quite the job at the end of 2019 – a reality that pointed fingers in her direction since she had helped establish the firm alongside Ashish Singhal, the company’s Chief Executive, in the year 2017.
As described by the investigation team, Ayushi was one of the pioneer members of the Bitcipher Labs team. Ayushi had been trusted with the keys to the area where the password to the crypto wallet was kept safe.
To take advantage of this trust, the suspect accessed the storage area alone and took a snapshot of the password. It is said that Ayushi intended to steal the Bitcoins in order to establish her own crypto exchange. To succeed, she bought a hardware wallet and used the obtained password to convert the Bitcoins into Monero before transferring the funds to her Binance account.
Recovery of Funds
The investigation was concluded with the arrest of Ayushi who confessed to the crime.
According to Indian authorities, Ayushi was apprehended and her house searched. The investigation team found a laptop whose history proved that the suspect had used the 24-word password to steal funds in installments between January and March
In the end, the police succeeded at recovering the stolen funds, which were handed over to Bitcipher Labs.
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