The state attorney office’s cybercrime division in Israel arrested a local on Monday for a 10-year-long scheme involving credit card scams. The local, by the name of Hilmi Git, used more than 800 credit cards to carry out 20,000 transactions during the past 10 years. As part of his arrest, the law enforcement agency confiscated over $8 million in BTC, believed to have been used for money laundering.
Git fraudulently used over 800 credit cards, racking up purchases to the tune of around $280,000. In the last 10 years, it is thought that Git has laundered over $8 million and has been storing the money in his Bitcoin wallet. This discovery lead to the law enforcement agency of Israel to perform the first-ever Bitcoin confiscation, which resulted in 1,071 BTC tokens being seized while the outcome of the trial is being awaited.
“We are thieves”
According to Calcalist, the local media outlet in Israel, Git stated that he and others like him are thieves and that they would take money wherever they can find it.
For now, the state will continue to hold Git in custody to prevent him from regaining control over the crime network. As a part of these preventive measures, Git has been denied internet access.
Seizing his Bitcoin wallet marks the first-ever Bitcoin seizure by law enforcement in Israel. After Git’s conviction, the state might have a legal precedent to allow it to confiscate cryptocurrencies.
Despite the fact that this is the first time that Israel has been forced to do this, some other countries have taken similar action. Back in January, for example, the US government seized 512 Bitcoin tokens, and 512 Bitcoin Cash tokens from a known drug dealer who had been operating on the dark web and auctioning off various assets, including cryptos.
Finland also had a similar incident in February, when the country seized 2000 BTC from another drug dealer.
