Topic: Why Do People Steal Hundreds of Millions in BTC And Still Get Caught? (Read 341 times)

If you are going to steal this big of a money you would have to carefully plan it you might be successful but not for long

Even though they stole crypto and crypto is often hard to track although it is unclear what coins did they steal, one wrong move and everything can be connected to an address yes, scammers and thieves are smart nowadays but we can not deny that the government and the officials still have some tools and technology to help them

We do not know what else the government has on us that can be used if we were to go in hiding i also read that the two bought luxury items and real estate if they randomly had huge amount of money out of nowhere then the government might find that suspicious

The more you have money, the more you can not be invisible

Evolving technology is the reason why these people can be tracked. After all, intelligence is also quite smart in uncovering cases like that - they can even wait patiently for a long time until the perpetrator is revealed. It is also a consideration that someone does not need to avoid tax if they have a lot of assets – the government and law enforcement will most likely be able to uncover this.

If a hacker or scammer can to hide for a few years - then maybe they will be caught after a few years after that. Centralized exchanges can also work with governments to uncover many cases like this - so there is no safe haven for scammer or hackers.

this suddenly reminded me of an article I have read before where a guy who stole tens of thousands of BTC and was able to get away with it but ended up being caught by the police after he called the cops to report that his house was broken into and things(the thing that was stolen from him apparently contained BTCs) were stolen from him.

Remember, criminals always leave a footprint when they organise a crime. That's how law enforcement agencies catch criminals. You might experience real-life cases for study, so the same happens for crypto as well. Money flow is one of the reasons criminals would be caught. Cryptocriminals will first try to whitewash their crypto with their funds through various means; otherwise, they can't use it. So they have to exchange somewhere, and that's how it becomes very easy to find criminals.

As the scammers are advancing and also the anti-scammers squad is also developing because those software and apps the scammers user in most of them are manufactured by the experts of anti-scammers so there is no way those scammers or thieves can go without caught. If really government wants to trace anyone who stole public funds they can do it but corruption would not allow them to do it. Those who stole other people's money and hide it to spend are caught because they don't have their personal software and app but using other people developed and programmed softwares. So it is easy for them to be traced.

Ponzi Schemes do not have their personal internet IP or internet connection to operate so they are traceable.

They might get away with their stealings but Karma waits for them. No one can lead a peaceful life by robbing innocent people of their hard earned money and the mistake these thieves do is they get addicted to it and they are too lazy to do any business with the money as they want to spend their entire life by stealing and some or the other time they get caught.

Few are very cunning as they never disclose their entire loot and diversify it in multiple assets like real estate or some businesses and they easily get away from jail and then enjoy their life but it's a miserable life.

When you steal a lot of money it doesn't really get easier. You need IDs, tickets, passports, people who will rent stuff for you, you can't do everything alone, but if these people learn about the money, what's stopping them from:
*Torturing you and taking it for themselves
*Blackmailing you
*Selling you to authorities for a bounty

You need trusted people to be able to hide, especially that you'll be doing it for many years. Most of these people who hack exchanges or run ponzi schemes end up not using the money out of fear or using it and leading the police to their doorstep. Read about that guy from Czech Republic who stole money from Sheep Marketplace. He started spending the money, bought a house and... got 9 years in prison.

Fraudsters have collected millions of dollars from several frauds carried out and they also get a lot of money from the rich people or whales whose wallets they hacked. Fraudsters are now smarter and don't withdraw all the money, they do money laundering well and disguise every transaction through mixers or gambling platforms. therefore the forum is very strict with the Mixer Platform rules and does not allow it, that would be a serious problem.

If scam is large and involves millions of dollars, the fraudsters may prefer to return the money, get a 5% rate, and work legally in a security protection company, but most of the fraudsters are lazy, do not like to work, and want a quick profit, so they defraud middle-class people because they know that their income is limited. The possibility of tracking currencies is more difficult because of their limited resources and they rarely target the rich.

There is also the risk that you steal from the wrong people. Here I mean people that not go to a lawyer to get their money back, instead they go to hardware store and buy a blow torch and some pliers and pay you a visit to discuss the issue......

I believe that our new technologies right now are also helpful to these thieves to get caught, we are totally different now compared to before.
Some fugitives are also dumb because some of them made their own mistake to get caught, and some are dumb mistakes.
Doing criminal things in cryptocurrency is also difficult because we are decentralized and their footprints can track some in the chain.

These guys know how to infiltrate but not to hide their tracks. They also become too complacent that they'll never get caught because they even got inside of these systems and took something out. These thieves are most certainly wanting to still be a part of the life they lived before they got rich through stealing, and because of that they get caught most of the time.

If you know how to lay low and manage your money not to be detected by authorities, you can really have a life that you want. But of course, it entails a detailed planning and be very cautious with whom you are dealing with. Because people have the tendency to report something if they feel they can get something out of it.

On the other hand, stealing is not really an admirable act. Would be hard to live a life always looking out over your shoulder? Would it be better to have peace of mind even if you live not in luxury?

Stealing big bucks might seem like a quick ticket to a carefree life but it's not all it's cracked up to be. When you're sitting on a pile of cash, finding a safe spot to enjoy it becomes a real headache. Authorities around the globe are pretty good at playing hide-and-seek and with limited hiding place  it's tough to stay under the radar. Even if you dream of a tropical escape, the reality is more like a high-stakes game of cat and mouse and the odds aren't in favor of the thief

don't ever think that when you steal people's money in the form of bitcoin, you can wander around outside without getting caught. the biggest bitcoin theft case at the moment is said to be silk road where the perpetrator stole a lot of bitcoin and lived lavishly but in the end he had to be caught.

bitcoin uses a blockchain system, all transactions will be recorded there and also bitcoin addresses that have a lot of bitcoin will be monitored where all the funds flow by the government so it is difficult to hide yourself when you steal bitcoin from other people.

Yeah, It's true that scammers frequently employ a range of techniques to try to hide their tracks, such as coin mixing services or even more advanced strategies like Monero or Zcash. Scammers are always coming up with new ways to mask their traces, and the crypto industry is always trying to come up with new ways to identify and stop this kind of activity. It's a never-ending game of cat and mouse lol.

Bitcoin is not like dark web money that can not be traced, this is why we have to take note of it as not being totally free money that scammers can use to escape being traced, so it depends on the extent of the scam is and which authority is after the hands behind it most time, no one can hide from the government and if the law wants to cash up with anyone, anything is traceable with the law and Bitcoin is not so much privacy concern that will make it untracked, no Bitcoin transactions can be traced, but sometimes, most scammers walk away with the crime if the amount of pressure from law becomes overly week.


So those who steal loads of $ are constantly at risk of getting caught up with regards, so there is no free lunch anywhere and scammers have no hiding ace regardless of what tool they use.

I mean the answer is obvious, they make mistakes, so what's we need to discuss? do you think it's bad if the government caught the hacker/scammer?

Replying a way to make them to stay anonymous or learnt from their mistakes about this discussion, it's nothing difference like "how to teach someone become a successful hacker/scammer?" lol.

The biggest crypto thieves aren't the ones who hack some crypto exchange and steal the coins. The biggest crypto thieves are the ones, who are running a "legitimate" business and find "legitimate" ways to scam their customers. There's no need for anyone to try to hide in "CAR, Easter Island, Somalia or Siberia" if he has enough money(who on earth would try to hide in Somalia? ). Having lots of money is more than enough for anyone to get good lawyers and try to trick the judicial system. Scammers like Sam Bankman-Fried were too dumb and they lost control over their scams. I think that many crypto whales have been scamming in the past, but most of them got away with no penalties at all.

Most of those who do these crimes are not expert when it comes to hide themselves and stay unanimous forever because the pressure and the anxiety they feel when they get those money suddenly, are way worse than we imagine so they lose focus easily.

They get caught and often made the same mistake which will going to exposed them to the authorities and suddenly they find themselves caught red-handed while they think they have been hiding fine.

The reason why these scammers are still caught even though they can hack and make off with millions of dollars from their victims is because there are still smarter people who are better than them. Because usually these scammers have patterns and traces left behind during their operations, and this is what the authorities use to track or lure the scammers out of their hiding place. So there's no need to be surprised why these scammers can hack so well but can still be caught by the authorities.

That's called Karma! The Karmic cycle is real and many of us have experienced it. If you have done something wrong, that thing will come back you as a lesson. That why we say - what goes around comes around. That's life for all of us.

Today's technological landscape is so vast and complex, it has become very very problematic for fugitives to hide for indefinite time. And that's how it should be. No matter how pseudo anonymous the cryptos are, the criminals need to face justice, either by law or by life!

I think a lot of them think Bitcoin transactions are impossible to trace and we know there are companies out there that are using specialized Blockchain analysis software and data mining software to trace transactions and to follow the money.

The thieves also make small mistakes, like re-using addresses and or email addresses, so that they can be tracked.

the effort to find a person randomly that has more then $200k that is willing to lose it is more then randomly calling thousands of people and only trying to scam $500

just look at all the scam-buster youtube videos.
leader scammers hire people that have no morals to run lots of different scams on millions of people. knowing that only 1% of millions of people will get hooked in. which still ends up as many thousands of people being scammed for small amounts. where by the moral-less employees get a cut of each scam they get. and the lead scam organiser takes the cut from each of those which soon add up

just look at all the HYIP scams in bitcoin in the 2013-16 era it was not scammer trying to get $200k. it was scammer trying to get $100 from thousands of people, amounts most would risk thinking if they lose it its not a big loss.. and thats how they get so many idiots handing them funds

just look at all the ICO scams and dodgy NFT stuff. they sell crap for <$#### by promoting that their token can reach the highs as the first promoted token sold to its self

scammers get away with it by what they call "low dollar crime=low detention time"
its no secret. tv shows been saying about it forever
heck even old TV shows like "the wire" were showing how drug dealers get away with it by not hauling KG bricks of drugs on the streets doing big deals, but instead 'dime bags' using mauls
where by if caught its not a federal level crime for the maul nor the boss, but a low level fine. scammers know what to do, where by even caught in a crime they have minimised their time. and hoarded their funds away to retrieve once free

the ones that get caught and do lengthy time are the category C of my last post

Not to forget: The web is a 0 trust environment....

Even if you do all perfectly, no the tiniest of mistakes....... but maybe one of your "friends" you are interacting with gets caught by the police for something totally unrelated.....and then the friendly police officer tells this guy:  You will likely go to jail for 5 years, or do you maybe have something to offer that will make you look good in front of the judge

And then your "friend" will tell the police all he knows about you and your scams . and if you were dumb enough to maybe send a pic of the new car you bought with the money from your scams and  it shows also a license plate, all the police needs to get on your tracks...

Then this means one thing only !! NEVER SCAM OTHERS because what ever happens you will be caught or you will suffer everything in the future , it may not happen soon but in time .
no Sin that did not pay in lifetime or even after ,Live fair and life peace .

Because they're all stupid outside of the tech stuff, they're good only when it comes to the creating programs, doing social engineering attacks but cleaning their tracks isn't their specialty, that's why they try to do their crimes as anonymous as much because they don't have a really good grip at getting off the grid. Another reason that I can think of is that there's a public ledger and we know where the money goes there no matter how much you want to mix it with bitcoin mixers, the computer forensics have a way of knowing, they just take their sweet time doing it or it takes a long time. Third reason is that there's a company that's paying top dollar for the best computer forensics and investigators out there to recover those bitcoins so that top dollar people can't afford to mess things up because they know that the pay behind it is big and they've got a reputation that can't afford to be tainted by some computer whiz that's good at computers.

There will never be valid statistics about scammers, thieves who get away will not be published, even those that are not detected as theft are still many. As @franky1 said, each thief takes a small portion of property from many people. What is impossible to happen is that the victims will find it difficult to form an alliance and report it to the police. The chance of this happening is almost close to 0%. This kind of fraud often uses cryptocurrency and BTC cover as its attraction.

There are also scammers that are not even detected by CCTV and the police, such as theft within the family area or smaller scope area. This will never be included in the calculation data and makes the accuracy of the data on escaped and caught thieves/scammer no longer valid.

Theft of large amounts of BTC will usually look to mixers as the first path they take. And the police will of course not remain silent when these large funds start to move, whether to mixers or other services.

There is absolutely nothing that stays ever hidden forever.
You as a thief may have a time to steal and succeed and so also, there could be times for you to be caught.

Thr more higher your commitment is in life is the more wide your deeds are spread so, if you steal once Bitcoin in a huge rate, it is as when you steals ones huge amount of money or treasures that the owner could decide that " No, I will never this this great lost to". And by so, every efforts would be out on deck to hunt and fishes you out.

If you dares to illegally temper with my Bitcoin which I have suffered to laboure til I could accumulate as much in an appreciative valumes, then I must let you know how treasury it is to me and that I would never let go of you.
My Bitcoin my pride!

It really depends on who you steal from. There are people you will steal from and they will let things go. There are also those that won't let things go even if you steal $1000 from them. Also when you steal what is not yours, nature is already against you, so every little efforts made to get to you will be fruitful.

Sadly, many get away with it and that's why they're continuing in doing so. While the attention of those trackers are mostly to the big times, there are a lot of small scams that have been successfully done and forgotten.

And that's because there's no need for them to check it out and reports won't matter to them because the victims themselves will just let it go and will move on and reason out that it's a small amount and they can recover.

So typically, the big ones are being investigated and tracked and use everything in order for them to take it back with the help of these services, chain analysis, etc.

Do we actually have any even approximate statistics of percentage of scammers that get caught and those that get away? Because I have a feeling that it's easy to cherry-pick some high-profile examples, but looking at the bigger picture it might be the case that most scammers avoid justice.

Also, those scammers that steal millions and still get caught are often scamming for the first time and don't take enough measures to hide. Stealing millions in crypto is not a proof of skill because people so easily invest in anything that promises high returns.

they use a Ponzi system, and deliberately invite everyone to join, from here alone we can see the real mistake, this is not theft but a more complex fraud, I think they are not the only ones caught, people with the same intentions will definitely be caught, because there will be many victims came forward. so the rights of those who are cheated will be fought for and tried strictly so that there is a deterrent effect,
If they do steal Bitcoins it will be very difficult to catch unless they make a mistake by making a withdrawal with the bank (just my opinion about the case in the article)

In most cases, some Thieves don't get caught after stealing some millions of dollars, either in Bitcoin or in fait. Some Thieves too are so dumb that they could still get caught. 

@OP, what you must know is that their are different kinds of Thieves. Some Thieves or Scammers are highly educated. Their educational proficiency makes them so smart that they can pull any stunt and steal huge amount of money from different victims. After they have done so, they can go undercover for some months or even years, and while they are undercover, they could be living their normal lifestyle until they are convinced that the case of their theft has yet been dropped by the investigation agency, due to no very good trace after years of investigation. 

Scammers will continue to thief because it has become a profession for them, probably because they feel that is the only way they can get huge amount of money without legally working to earn such money. They have lost their conscience and moral, so it doesn't really concern them, what ever consequences they face in their dirty job. 

The efforts to locate one victim to scam $200,000 is quite lesser than to locate 400 people to scam $500 each. This could be a good reason they channel all their energy to one point rather than to numerous points.

Bitcoin is no longer highly decentralized. There's a possibility of moving the coins through a CEX and convert to a stable coin which is freezable. The government is fully against mixers and of the criminals go DEX, they could also lose what they stole. There are no much exit route for criminals.

BTC has a transparent and public blockchain, so the scammers must also understand the network and know how to use privacy solutions like mixers and CoinJoin implementations to be able to obscure all traces.

Take note that not too many scammers get caught, most of them are caught because their actions drew the attention of the government and blockchain analysis companies, and so they blacklist such addresses and confiscate its funds when it ever gets to a centralized exchange or custodial service. But if an attacker compromises your wallet and steals your funds that is not worth government attention, you cannot recover it.

If the scammer made a mistake like having all the Bitcoin that the scammer scammed in one wallet address then there's a chance that the scammer will be caught since Bitcoin transactions can be traced where the funds is going unless the scammer use a service to mix the coin. There are scammers who got away and I don't think scammers will get all most of the time. As you have known, scammers use many ways to scam people so we can assume that the scammer also have many ways to sell the crypto into fiat without getting caught.

A huge percentage of those who scam get away with it. Very few cases gets global attention which attracts lots of chai analysis and tracking of the path of the funds.

There exists some safe havens where those whk want to live privately using Bitcoin without being tracked or forced to give up their privacy, this fortunately does not provide security for scammers.

Say that to the politician whose children are still enjoying the fruit of their labour.

And about your question why they usually caught
Bitcoin transactions are traceable
Since every record are publicly stated in the blockchain.
This is one of the reasons the government are actively against mixers
It makes them tracing transactions harder.

@Franky1 points are seconded. Some of the criminals are still smart enough to end up in some profit even when they caught
Not neglecting bribery can help you turn the eyes of the law.    

I read the news. I do not saw the ponzi scheme as bitcoin ponzi scheme. I saw it as cryptocurrency ponzi scheme. The coins the scammer used is not talked about on the news.

Crypto can become traceable from mistakes. See monero transaction traced by Finnish authorities: https://cointelegraph.com/news/finnish-authorities-traced-monero-vastaamo-hack

Monero transaction can not be traced but likely the scammer made mistake and he was traced.

If the money is not huge, the hacker and scammer do get away with it. If it is bitcoin, mixers can be used. But know that humans are prone to mistakes that can let their anonymity to be leaked.

There are people who are good at hacking and penetrating others wallets and making away with their funds, and to some point, most of them always follow all necessary procedures in order to get their money cleaned and laundered, but some always make a tinny mistake that usually brings them down.
 
Taking what's not yours is not good, and when you steal a large amount of money from someone or a group of people, there is always a watch over those stolen funds, and even if you mix those coins without being careful enough, you might still end up exposing yourself to the same crime. Sometimes it just seems too easy, like the evil is what usually blindfolds them from doing what they could have done to keep the coin's anonymity, but there are still a few stolen funds in crypto that have to be traced back to the criminals.

three reasons

A. most scammers dont steal $200,000 from one victim. instead they steal $500 from many victims where by each victim does not feel its worth fighting because after legal costs of chasing the money they waste more money. so just treat it as a loss and not chase the money
(the "buy $500 giftcard, grandma" scam)

B. most thieves that steal high amounts in total will hide an allotment away, so even if caught and do some jail time. after jail they are richer then getting a normal job for that jail time period

C.most thieves are too dumb to work normal jobs, they cant cope with the mental requirements to work, so steal things. they are not intelligent

Do you wonder why the biggest crypto thieves still get caught, with all that money? Imagine having just $200,000. What all that money could do for you? As a thief, you could even disapper, but you can't. You know why? There are few hiding places on earth for fugitives these days. And when you've got lots of money, those few hiding places practically make your money useless. Even Crypto Queen may not have disappeared as we presumed. How about CAR? Easter Island? Somalia? Siberia? In any case, never believe that you could steal from people and get away to enjoy the loot happily ever after. This is what these duo never reckoned with. And I think there are many like them who wouldn't mind doing anything just for money.
https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/65b41174f00d2a6f4b9880b8/