An administrator of a company in Haidian, Beijing, was detained for stealing bitcoins worth millions

Beijing News Express (Reporter Zuo Yanyan) Recently, Beijing Haidian police cracked a case of sabotaging computer information systems. The suspect Zhong used his administrator's authority to modify the application program in the company's computer and stole 100 bitcoins worth millions of yuan. Before he could sell the stolen goods, Zhong was arrested by the police. Currently, Zhong is under criminal detention for suspected crime of sabotaging computer information systems.

On the evening of September 25 last year, the Xisanqi Police Station of the Haidian Branch received a report from a technology company in the area, saying that the company's computer information system had been destroyed and 100 bitcoins worth millions of RMB had been stolen. The police found through technical investigation that although the suspect had remotely operated to intrude into the company's account, he had used the company's password to enter through the primary protection of the system, which showed that the suspect should be an internal staff of the company. After investigation, it was determined that the company administrator Zhong was a major suspect.

In the early morning of January 2, 2018, the police summoned Zhong to the police station. After interrogation, Zhong confessed that he was the company's administrator and knew that there were bitcoin transactions abroad and that they were very valuable, so he wanted to make some money. After using the administrator's rights to enter the company's database, he cracked the password of the company's account storing bitcoins and stole 100 bitcoins from the company.

According to the police, after stealing the bitcoins, Zhong wanted to sell them on a foreign website. However, since he did not know which website could do this, he searched online for a "bitcoin wallet" application and deposited the 100 bitcoins he had stolen into it. He heard that there was also a "core wallet" that could clear the traces of the theft, so he moved 10 more bitcoins and deposited them into it. After the police's work, Zhong returned the remaining 90 bitcoins to the company, but the 10 bitcoins deposited into the "core wallet" could not be recovered.

At present, the suspect Zhong has been criminally detained by Haidian police on suspicion of destroying computer information systems, and the case is under further trial.

Editor: Dai Yuxi Proofreader: Wang Xin