After three years of waiting for the attackers to voluntarily return his over 16 Bitcoins (BTC) stolen via a transaction, Andrew Schober has sued the parents of the U.K.-based juveniles that conducted the cryptocurrency heist.
Schober is poised to recover his stolen Bitcoin and the financial expenses he incurred tracking down the perpetrators, including the $10,000 paid to private investigators and crypto forensics experts.
In a lawsuit filed in a Colorado court in May, Schober narrated how the unfortunate incident happened and investigators’ role in tracing the funds to two underage U.K. residents, who he alleged were the main culprits of the crime.
Genesis of the Matter
According to the lawsuit, Schober stated that investigators revealed that his computer had downloaded a digital clipboard-stealing malware capable of replacing every genuine e-wallet address with that of the attackers.
Per the victim, the malware was hosted in a Reddit link to an Electrum Wallet application. With Schober not knowing that his computer had been infected with the clipboard-stealing malware, he decided to send 16.4 Bitcoins ($767,854) to another account by copying and pasting the e-wallet address.
Unfortunately, the address was immediately replaced with that of the attackers and they became the recipients of the bitcoins.
Hazel D. Wells Response to the Case
With the case formally lodged in a Colorado court, one of the victim’s parents, Hazel D.Wells, filed a motion this month saying that her son had already been questioned by U.K. authorities in connection with the Bitcoin theft.
Schober’s Plea For a Peaceful Resolution Ignored
After much conviction about the true identity of the young perpetrators, Schober said he wrote to their parents informing them about their children’s illicit activities online, hoping that the parents would voluntarily return the stolen bitcoins.
Excerpts from the letter Schober wrote to each of the hackers’ parents reads:
“Losing this money has been financially and emotionally devastating […] As his parents I am appealing to you to give him a chance to make this right […] If he returns what he stole in full, 16.4552 BTC by October 21, 2018, I will drop this matter and move on.”
However, Schober did not get a response from any of the involved parties, prompting him to take the matter to the extreme by filing a lawsuit in a Colorado court earlier this year.
While the parents of the alleged hackers are not disputing Schober’s claim, Hazel D.Wells says time has run out for the victim to claim cause for action against them.
According to Mark Rasch, a former prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), Schober is suing the attackers’ parents because he had informed them about a crime carried out by their wards and they failed to act on it, adding:
“A lot of these crimes are being committed by juveniles, and we don’t have a good juvenile justice system that’s well designed to both civilly and criminally go after kids.”
Cybercrimes involving crypto are increasing at an alarming rate in recent months. Just last month, a man reportedly stole $700,000 worth of crypto from his drinking buddy.
