Crypto scandals: Moscow bank’s employee steals 180M Rubles

Nowadays, illicit conversion of cash into cryptocurrencies has become quite common, and the majority of the time bad actors use this method to avoid getting tracked and getting stuck in any regulatory tussle. 

In a most recent development, a bank employee has been detained over the allegations of stealing around 180 million rubles in cash from a client’s safe deposit box, further converting them into crypto.

As per the available data, the accused Moscow Bank employee was detained at one of the known airports of the capital; worth noting that the individual has swapped the stolen amount into unknown cryptocurrencies. 

The official statement on Telegram of spokeswomen of the Russian Ministry of External Affairs notes that the unmanned bank has filed for enforcement help and involvement after it found that the funds from the safe deposit of customers were missing.

She added “ An employee of the Moscow branch of the bank took advantage of his official position. He stole about 180 million rubles from a client’s safety deposit box. When employees at the financial institution discovered the theft, they contacted the police.” 

Following the arrest, the enforcement unit revealed that the detained bank employee had wiped out the funds in different stages, and the last batch of the stolen amount was converted into cryptocurrencies.

As per the laws of the region if the detained individual proved guilty he/she might face a term of 10 years or more in jail. 

In several other nations, such cases of secretly stealing funds from bank customers have also been reported in the past few quarters; a Former Bank of America employee Abhishek Patel received a three-year prison sentence in 2022 for embezzling $1.5 million from clients to invest in crypto.

In the same way, an ex-employee of Wells Fargo was accused in 2022 of stealing $650k from clients in order to invest in crypto. In 2020, a former Barclays employee was jailed to 4 years in prison for stealing £1.2 million from customers to invest in digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Such cases have surged in the past few years, and now the customers of traditional banks have opted for crypto-based banks to avoid getting victimized. 

In the past 24 hours, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market was at $3.52 trillion with a decline of 2.56 percent, in the same time frame the trading volume was $147.09 billion with a loss of 22.48 percent. 

Bitcoin, the oldest crypto of the market, lost 2.56 percent of its trading value intraday and now exchanging hands at $102,307; similarly, its market capitalization lost 2.66 percent reaching $2.02 trillion and a trading volume was $60.32 billion with a decline of 18.39 percent. 

According to data from CoinMarketCap, the intraday gainer’s list has been topped by Pudgy Penguins trading at $0.02538 with a surge of 7.31 percent followed by Kucoin Token (KCS) which added 1.68 percent now trading at $11.71, GateToken and XCD Network. 

At the same time, the loser list has been ruled by ai16z which lost 22.08 percent trading at $0.94, Hyperliquid reached $22.47 after a loss of 12.71 percent, Official Trump, Fartcoin, Jupiter, and Aave.