Three Bitcoin scammers have been jailed after fraudulently gaining more money than they could spend. Preston Crown Court heard how Stephen Boys, Jordan Robinson and Kelly Caton ended up lavishly splashing the cash by handing out £5,000 gift vouchers to random strangers and buying cars for people they met in the pub.
The scam began in 2017 when James Parker spotted a glitch in an Australian cryptocurrency trading website. Parker – who died in 2021 before he could be prosecuted – and his co-conspirators were able to exploit the error by siphoning off more than £20m worth of credits over a three-month period.
Boys worked with a UK national based in Dubai to convert the cryptocurrency into cash. It was then laundered through various foreign based online accounts. The gang splurged their fortune on luxury items such as watches, houses, cars and designer goods, including a £600 wine cooler, while keeping more than £1 million stashed away in various bank accounts.
At one point the gang was making so much money they ended up simply giving it away to strangers and people they met at the pub, Preston Crown Court heard. During the trial, Boys told the court how he took £1 million cash in a suitcase to buy a villa from Russians he met in the back office of an estate agent and paid £60,000 to pay off corrupt officials so he could carry on laundering money.
He exploited a loophole to withdraw dishonestly-obtained crypto assets worth around £15 million from his trading account on an Australian-based cryptocurrency exchange. Caton dishonestly withdrew £2.7 million and Robinson withdrew £1.7 million from their accounts. The scam made so much money that £5,000 gift cards were handed out to people in the street and cars were bought for people Parker met in the pub, Preston Crown Court heard.
During the trial Boys told the court how he took £1 million cash in a suitcase to buy a villa from Russians he met in the back office of an estate agent and paid £60,000 to pay off corrupt officials so he could carry on laundering money. During the investigation police recovered 445 Bitcoin, then worth £22 million, along with luxury watches, houses, cars and designer goods, including a £600 wine cooler, plus more than £1 million in bank accounts.
Parker’s financial adviser Stephen Boys worked with a UK national who lived in the United Arab Emirates to convert the cryptocurrency into cash. The money was then laundered through various foreign-based online accounts. Stephen Boys, of Accrington, Lancashire was found guilty of converting and transferring criminal property and jailed for six years.
“The scale of the fraud in this case is absolutely staggering and led to the suspects literally having more money than they could spend,” said Det Sgt David Wainwright, of Lancashire Police’s Fraud Unit.”
