Siberian old woman caught fraud scheming using Bitcoin topic

A small town of Biysk in Siberia has just seen the opening of an unusual criminal case. A local woman (name unspecified), 66 years old, has established a set of lectures on cryptocurrency and investment strategy. She has managed to get the money from the naive audience just by telling she would convert them in digital currency and return more later. Then she disappeared with acquired funds.

Six victims quickly found out this is not how investment business is usually done and requested the police to find her, which it did in Novosibirsk (the region’s administrative center). The suspect registered the fraud firm without forging any documents or identities which has greatly helped the law enforcement.

Bitcoin is connected to this story indirectly, but it demonstrates how the concept of Bitcoin travels around the globe and sometimes echoes even in the areas which first Bitcoin enthusiasts might have never thought about. In a similar case with a street trader in another town in Russia the criminal sold a fake metal Bitcoin to a citizen of Obninsk who thought it was a good investment and this coin would become much more valuable later.

Image courtesy of Reuters