George Koutsostamatis, a 28-year-old US citizen from Chicago, pleaded guilty on Monday to running a fraudulent scheme in an attempt to steal funds from his former employer, BP (LON:BP) America.
According to information from a US attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Koutsostamatis was arrested in December 2017. He admitted to sending an email message to BP, falsely claiming to have employee private data and access to the company’s computers. Koutsostamatis demanded 125 Bitcoins in exchange for not disclosing the information he alleged to possess.
The court will pass sentence on July 13, 2018, with Koutsostamatis facing a potential 20-year imprisonment plus a fine of up to $250,000. The federal judge in Houston accepted the guilty plea, and Koutsostamatis to out on bond pending the hearing.
The accused was employed by BP in Chicago as a refining supply economist on the company’s trading floor. The position gave him some access to BP’s internal records and the computer network. However, the plea statement alleged he never infiltrated the corporate computer network and never collected private employee data. The documents he possessed were related to his job and were not obtained through the use of a virus or malware.
In 2017, BP spokesperson Jason Ryan stated that the company had no evidence the incident with Koutsostamatis had compromised corporate or employee information.
Even though the majority of cryptocurrencies are backed by the most secure technology, scammers and criminals are keeping up by getting more creative. They continue to profit by attacking crypto wallets and computer devices rather than the blockchain infrastructure itself. This year, we should expect scammers to be more dangerous and sophisticated in bypassing security measures.
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