Finnish police want to detain crypto fugitive Richard Heart on suspicion of assault and gross tax evasion believed to be in the region of several hundred million euros. 

The remand order for Heart, real name Richard Schueler, was issued by Finnish police last Friday. Heart is suspected of owing tax in Finland after the country’s tax administration found his returns did not match up with its assessment. 

Helsinki police detective Harri Saaristola told Finnish publisher Yle, “It is then a matter of neglecting to report [income] or offering false information.”

He added, “Based on the very considerable amount of money in question and the long-term and planned nature of the activity, there are grounds to suspect gross tax evasion.” 

Read more: Richard Heart claims SEC lawsuit infringes his free speech

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Heart in July 2023 with misappropriating investor funds, accusing him of stealing millions of dollars through Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX and using it to buy watches, cars, and other luxury goods.  

Heart attempted to dismiss the lawsuit last April. His current whereabouts remain unknown but his home is reportedly in Helsinki, Finland’s capital. 

The remand order says his alleged tax avoidance took place between June 2020 and April 2024, while the suspected assault happened between February 16 and 17, 2021. The Finnish investigation is said to be in its early stages and is being carried out in conjunction with international authorities.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Finland wants to detain Richard Heart, alleges millions in unpaid taxes appeared first on Protos.

A court in Finland has jailed the hacker responsible for blackmailing 30,000 psychotherapy patients for more than $500,000 in bitcoin, sentencing him to six years and nine months in prison. 

Julius Kivimäki threatened to extort the Vastaamo psychotherapy center out of 40 bitcoins in 2018 after hacking into its database and stealing patient notes.

He then blackmailed individual patients by threatening to release their notes unless a smaller bitcoin ransom was paid. Kivimäki denies the charges.  

One suicide has reportedly been linked to Kivimäki’s extortion attempts while one victim told the BBC, “The main thing is that this absolutely empathy-lacking, ruthless criminal gets a prison sentence.”

Read more: Finnish police can’t find suspected bitcoin blackmailer they just released

“After this, there rise thoughts about how short the conviction is when reflected against the number of victims. But, that’s the Finnish law and I must accept that,” the victim said.

Finnish media reports that Kivimäki’s sentence was reportedly shortened by three months due to settlements he’s made with plaintiffs and some of the victims. Despite this, more victims will reportedly come forward with civil court cases against him seeking compensation.

Police lost Finnish hacker 

Kivimäki was arrested in Paris in February 2023 he attempted to evade authorities and was extradited to Finland weeks later. At one point, he failed to show up to court for a week with authorities claiming they had lost the 26-year-old.

During the investigation into Kivimäki, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) may have also cracked Monero’s privacy ethos after it claimed to have heuristically concluded the probabilistic outcome of a Monero transaction.

The KRP, however, wouldn’t reveal its methods, claiming, “Police don’t want to tell criminals or anyone else how the anonymous cryptocurrency could have been traced. Working tracing methods could be of significant help to the KRP in other ongoing or future criminal investigations” (translated from Finnish).

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Hacker jailed for blackmailing therapy patients for bitcoin appeared first on Protos.

Finnish police are once again hunting a suspected hacker accused of blackmailing 30,000 psychotherapy patients for more than $500,000 in bitcoin after he gave them the slip when he was released from pre-trial detention.

Finnish national Aleksanteri Tomminpoika Kivimäki pleaded not guilty to hacking into the database of the Vastaamo psychotherapy center in 2018. Kivimäki allegedly told the center to pay 40 bitcoin, worth around $518,000 at the time of the breach, before sharing private documents in 2020.

According to the terms of Kivimäki’s release, he was banned from leaving the Espoo area and was ordered to remain at a certain address between seven in the evening and eight in the morning each day. He was also supposed to report to the police three times a week and be contactable on a certain phone number at all times.

However, since prosecutors filed a complaint last week, police have been unable to locate Kivimäki.

Read more: What is an Interpol red notice and how does it work?

Authorities adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach

Despite apparently being on the run and refusing to respond to calls from the police, Kivimäki made contact with Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanomat on Monday morning. Communicating via Signal, he reportedly said, “I am not missing,” and “I have not run away and I will definitely be seen in court.” 

Kivimäki’s lawyer Peter Jaari added, “I don’t know where he is. I urged him to report, but his message was that I would see him at the district court next week at the latest and I trust that he will show up there if the police don’t reach him sooner.”

Prosecutors are reportedly taking a ‘wait-and-see approach,’ and are holding back on issuing an Interpol notice. Prosecutor Pasi Vainio said, “We’ll see. Clearly he is aware that he should contact the authorities, but whether he will is a question mark.” 

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Finnish police can’t find suspected bitcoin blackmailer they just released appeared first on Protos.

Cybercrime experts in Finland claim to have achieved a forensic breakthrough that heuristically concluded the probabilistic outcome of a Monero transaction.

This is according to Marko Leposen of Finland’s national bureau of investigation (KRP).

If true, the news would devastate a community that has believed in Monero’s absolute, on-chain privacy for a decade.

As reported by a division of Telia in Finland called MTV News (no association with the Los Angeles-based entertainment brand), investigators calculated that it was “very likely” that someone illegally sent XMR to Binance in a series of transactions involving a crime. Unfortunately for the public, they did not disclose their methods.

No details about cracking the code

The criminal case involves ​​Julius Aleksanteri Kivimäki who allegedly hacked a health database and demanded a ransom. According to prosecutors, he received bitcoin payments from individual victims and then attempted to use Monero to obfuscate that money.

According to their report, “Police don’t want to tell criminals or anyone else how the anonymous cryptocurrency could have been traced. Working tracing methods could be of significant help to KRP in other ongoing or future criminal investigations” (translated from Finnish). Although it’s frustrating, withholding means and methods for future investigative power is a common practice among law enforcement.

Reigning for years as the world’s most popular, anonymous cryptocurrency, Monero has a committed community of privacy-focused users. Its Confidential Transaction (CT) technology enhances ring signatures and stealth addresses, making on-chain transactions using Monero’s native XMR coin almost impossible to trace. The law enforcement case in Finland involves a possible breach of Monero’s CT privacy.

Cryptographer Nicolas van Saberhagen wrote Monero’s whitepaper. Major figures in the crypto industry have contributed to the project, including Greg Maxwell, Franciso Cabañas, Riccardo Spagni, and many others.

Monero advocates respond to the Finland news

Observers on X (formerly Twitter) responded with a mix of disbelief and outrage. According to one observer, the criminal target was so easy to identify that law enforcement probably wouldn’t have needed to actually break Monero’s encryption.

Another observer agreed with that sentiment, concluding, “The network is still secure.”

Read more: You can now see Binance law enforcement requests for $10K in Bitcoin or Monero

Due to a legal system in Finland that allows sealing of means and methods from public view, it’s impossible to determine whether or not law enforcement in the country found a secret power to break Monero’s cryptography.

For years, many investigative agencies have claimed that XMR transactions are not entirely private, yet the network has remained popular. Every day, millions of dollars worth of XMR change hands around the world. Perhaps law enforcement knows each counterparty — or maybe not.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Did law enforcement in Finland crack Monero’s privacy technologies? appeared first on Protos.

Finnish prosecutors say a police investigation has linked a number of crypto transactions to the bank account of an alleged blackmailer who threatened to publish therapy notes belonging to more than 30,000 psychotherapy patients.

Finnish national Aleksanteri Tomminpoika Kivimäki has pleaded not guilty to the charges of aggravated data breach, 9,600 instances of aggravated sharing of private documents, 21,300 attempts at aggravated blackmail, and 20 counts of aggravated blackmail. He is accused of hacking into the database of the Vastaamo psychotherapy center in 2018, blackmailing its patients, and releasing private documents online in 2020 under the moniker of ‘ransom_man.’ 

The Vastaamo center was told to pay 40 bitcoin, worth roughly $518,000 at the time of the data breach. One victim who spoke to the BBC claimed he was asked to pay €500 or else his teenage counseling session notes would be published. 

As reported by Helsingin Sanomat, a police investigation paid bitcoin to the address of ‘ransom_man.’ Prosecutors claim the crypto transactions from this investigation have led them to the bank accounts of Kivimäki. However, Kivimäki claims that he was simply a spectator to the breach.

Read more: Data stolen from the British Library is being auctioned for bitcoin on the dark web

Money he received between 2019 and 2020 was questioned in court on Monday, with prosecutors claiming that Kivimäki could not have afforded his lifestyle unless he was responsible for the extortion.

In his defense, the Finnish national said his profits came from working at a travel agency and through an appreciation in the price of his crypto holdings. “At that time I had significant amounts of cryptocurrencies that had been acquired in 2012-2013. They were considerably valuable because of the increase in value,” he said.

Kivimäki further claims that the IP address authorities traced back to him could belong to several other people.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

The post Finnish police trace crypto to accused blackmailer of 33,000 therapy patients appeared first on Protos.

Finland has taken a huge hit on the near-2,000 bitcoin (BTC) stash that’s been collecting dust in its virtual vaults for more than four years, finally selling the coins that were worth $130 million just a few months ago for a mere $48 million.

In an email shared with Bloomberg on Thursday, Finnish authorities announced the sale of 1,889 BTC this summer. Unfortunately, in the time it’s taken to move the coins on, bitcoin’s price has dropped -63% from its November 2021 high of $68,990.

The delay was down to Finnish authorities’ initial concerns and indecision around selling the crypto. They cited the possibility of it being used in money laundering and other criminal activities, while government guidelines also prohibited the Finnish police from spending and investing the captured coins. 

But in January 2021, after a market boom that saw BTC’s price rise by 6,700%, officials decided to liquidate their bags and started the search for brokers capable of the job. In the end, they settled on Coinmotion Oy and Tesseract Group Oy. By this point, the BTC was worth $75 million.

Now it’s sold most of its coins for a huge discount, Finland is left with 92 BTC, worth $2.1 million, in the pot.

Finland makes a bitcoin loss but Ukraine still wants its money

It was previously reported that “tens of millions” made from the BTC sale would go towards bolstering Ukraine’s war effort against the Russian invasion. And while the amount raised is way short of the anticipated figure, Finnish customs are confident the complete sum will be donated.

“As far as Finnish Customs is aware the sales revenue in total is going to be donated to Ukraine and the donation has already been approved by the Finnish Parliament within the second supplementary budget this summer,” a spokesperson told Decrypt.

In the run-up to the war, BTC donations were already being used to aid non-governmental organizations and volunteer groups looking to help fight Russia. Over $100 million in crypto was donated to Ukraine just a month after Putin’s forces invaded.

Read more: Illegal Ukrainian crypto mine could have dented country’s war effort

On the opposite side, Russia has banned the use of digital payments and tokens for the purchasing of goods and services.

As it stands, countries are still rallying behind Ukraine with global leaders meeting earlier this week to discuss their continued support of Ukraine’s defense. Finland and Sweden completed talks to join NATO this month, confirming their ability to meet membership commitments.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.

The post Finland finally sells off its 1,900 seized bitcoin — but misses out on $82M appeared first on Protos.

Finland is selling off more than 1,800 confiscated Bitcoin and will donate some of the proceeds — said to be in the tens of millions — to help Ukraine fund its war against Russia, according to the country’s treasury minister.

Annika Saarikko detailed the “historic, collaborative decision” via Twitter on Wednesday evening, adding that there would be more in the country’s upcoming supplementary budget.

As outlined in an email statement shared with Bloomberg on Thursday, the Finnish government has 1,981 Bitcoin in its possession and is looking to auction off 1,890, worth almost $75 million.

Finland had been struggling with what to do with the snared Bitcoin amid concerns about money laundering and exactly what would happen to it once sold.

But now, according to the statement, the country has assigned two brokers, Coinmotion Oy and Tesseract Group Oy, to sell the coins, the majority of which were confiscated prior to 2018.

If and when the donations are made, Finland would become one of, if not the first, government to siphon crypto directly to Ukraine to help the war effort. Many other countries have been helping the embattled nation but most, like the US and UK, have done this by providing military equipment and weapons.

Indeed, on Thursday, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss stated the West must “double down” in its military support for Ukraine and said the 2% target defense spending outlined by Nato should be a “floor not a ceiling.” On the same day, Finland, along with Sweden, announced plans to submit Nato applications simultaneously as early as mid-May.

Ukraine has, of course, received millions of dollars worth of crypto from private donors following the country’s plea for donations back in February.

It’s worth noting, however, that the vast majority of Ethereum donations to Ukraine’s cause came at a time when the country was promising donors airdrop rewards in the form of potentially valuable NFTs or a new cryptocurrency.

After this offer was canceled, the donations duly dried up, suggesting that much of the apparent goodwill was actually more about turning a profit.

Ukraine wants crypto but would prefer Ukrainians didn’t buy it

Ukraine is obviously very keen to receive Bitcoin and crypto donations to fund its fight against Russia. But the country’s government isn’t so keen for its citizens to buy crypto themselves — at least not using Ukraine’s national fiat currency, Hryvnia.

Earlier this month, the government placed a temporary ban on Ukrainians buying crypto in order to stem the flow of money leaving the country.

Since the start of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s central bank noted that nearly $2 billion had been transferred.

The bank said the measures are designed to “prevent capital outflows and to reduce pressure on Ukraine’s foreign-currency reserves,” (via CoinDesk).

Billions in Bitcoin are going to auction

Finland isn’t the only country that has had to decide what to do with huge amounts of seized Bitcoin.

The US government regularly auctions off fortunes in seized crypto. Indeed, back in 2014, following the takedown of the illicit online marketplace Silk Road, the US sold off 30,000 Bitcoin for $19 million. This stash would be worth somewhere in the region of $1.2 billion today but the feds say they’re not interested in playing the markets.

Read more: Most Ethereum donors to Ukraine were airdrop profit-seekers

France has also auctioned off large amounts of Bitcoin. Last year it sold more than 600 Bitcoin — worth $30 million at the time and nearly $24 million today — reclaimed following the GateHub trading platform hack.

And UK police made $370,000 selling off a convicted hacker’s hoard of Bitcoin, Ripple and Ether, which it reportedly invested back into “crime prevention efforts” in 2019.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.

The post Finland will donate ‘tens of millions’ in seized Bitcoin to Ukraine war effort appeared first on Protos.