Somerset and Wiltshire pair jailed for £5.7m scam

Two men who stole more than £5.7m worth of cryptocurrency from victims around the world have been jailed.

Jake Lee, 38, of Charlcombe in Bath, and James Heppel, 42, of Staverton in Wiltshire, both pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to defraud.

The South West Regional Organized Crime Unit (SWROCU) identified 55 victims in 26 countries, including 11 in the UK, who were targeted by the pair.

Lee was jailed for four years and Heppel was sentenced to 15 months at Bristol Crown Court on 3 May.

The money included £551,000 in a suitcase, which was voluntarily handed in by Lee in January.

The pair carried out the fraud by impersonating cryptocurrency exchange website Blockchain.com to access victims’ Bitcoin wallets, allowing them to steal their funds and login details.

A £60,000 print of Banksy’s Bomb Love from 2003, along with cash totaling £835,000, £64,000 worth of cryptocurrency and three cars were seized by police.

A confiscation order of almost £1 million has been issued against Lee, which will be used to compensate victims.

Lawsuits for a similar order — which forces criminals to hand over money and available property or add time to their prison sentences — for Heppel are ongoing.

Sup. Matt Brain from SWROCU’s Regional Cyber ​​Crime Unit said the investigation into the pair began when Avon and Somerset Police arrested Lee on suspicion of money laundering.

Officers recovered £24,000 in cash and three digital devices, including three laminated Bitcoin Wallet Recovery Seeds – a collection of words that help the owner restore a Bitcoin wallet that has been lost.

At the same time as the investigation into Lee, SWROCU also launched an investigation into a cryptocurrency scam reported by a victim in Wiltshire who took £11,000 worth of Bitcoin from his Blockchain wallet.

Mr Brain added: “We took on the investigation into Lee and when we analyzed his devices we established that he was a central figure involved in a sophisticated domain forgery fraud and worked to identify numerous victims .

“Mapping Lee and Heppel’s crimes and links to other suspects and cryptocurrency exchanges around the world was complex work, but the fact that they both pleaded guilty to all charges, negating the need for a six-week trial, shows the strength of the evidence that we have them insured against them.”

Pamela Jain, a specialist prosecutor in the Crown Prosecution Service’s International Serious Economic Organized Crime Branch, said: “This was a complex and time-consuming prosecution involving inquiries with numerous victims and prosecution authorities around the world “.