He called headquarters and was told to wait for backup. “Regular people don’t comprehend all it does. On the night of December 5, 2017, as flurries of sleet and snow buffeted Iceland, Stefansson and his crew broke into the Algrim Consulting data center at Asbru. On the day after Christmas, cell phone records show, the gang drove together to the former naval base at Asbru to try their luck at hitting the Borealis Data Center a second time. This is Iceland’s “Big Bitcoin Heist”, and it’s still breaking news. Three of four burglaries took place in December and a fourth took place in January, but authorities did not make the news public earlier in hopes of tracking down the thieves. The police seemed slow to investigate, and the burgled companies preferred that the crimes stay quiet. He was captured after he and his accomplices posted a photo on Instagram (left). A judge at the Reykjanes District Court on Friday ordered two people to remain in custody. By solving and packaging complex “blocks” of encrypted data, the machines helped secure and expand the worldwide network of digital currency. “We opened the door and everything was empty!” she recalls. Security? Stefansson (32) is considered the mastermind of what Iceland calls the “Big Bitcoin Heist,” and many know him as being a famous thief. “The judge made the decision to think the matter over” until the following morning, Stefansson later observed. And now, to top it off, he was sick. Citation: Bitcoin heist: 600 powerful computers stolen in Iceland (2018, March 2) retrieved 8 May 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2018-03-bitcoin-heist-powerful-stolen-iceland.html Icelandic media have dubbed the crime the “big bitcoin heist” and the thieves could potentially make more money if they use the computers to mine the cryptocurrency and then sell it. For years, the country’s economy was centered around fishing and aluminum smelting. In Bitcoin mining, every second counts. They also seized his iPhone, which was shipped to Holland to be unlocked. The result was always the same: nothing. “We stole a purse from an old woman who was working there.” Hlynsson, who was convicted of joining his childhood friend in the Bitcoin heist, has grown into a muscular, tattoo-covered drug smuggler and money launderer known as Haffi the Pink. Within six months, Streng transformed an abandoned building on the former base—an old U.S. military lacquering garage—into Iceland’s first Bitcoin mine. The police, assisted by Interpol, mobilized in an international manhunt. But Stefansson managed to stay one step ahead. "This is a grand theft on a scale unseen before," said Olafur Helgi Kjartansson, the police commissioner on the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula, where two of the burglaries took place. Some 11 people were arrested, including a security guard, in what Icelandic media have dubbed the "Big Bitcoin Heist." He signed a declaration saying he “would spend the night in a prison cell while I waited for the judge to rule on the extension of my custody.” Then he climbed out of the window in his room, hitchhiked 65 miles to the airport, and took a flight to Stockholm in the name of “an old friend.” Since Sweden does not require Icelandic travelers to have passports, Stefansson says he “didn’t have to show any IDs, talk to any staff, nothing.”. The computers were gone, and there was no way to trace if they were being used to mine cryptocurrency. Iceland had become the world’s leader in Bitcoin mining based in part on its reputation of being virtually crime-free. Ten days after their first job, Stefansson and Viktor the Cutie drove to the data center, where Stefansson climbed the ladder, slipped through the open window, and landed, catlike, on the concrete floor. I’m not going to pretend.” Now, she and her sons raced to the mine. “We never call it interrogation,” an officer tells me. The lone police officer patrolling the area had gone home for the night. They also conversed on a Facebook page called Foruneytid, Icelandic for “the Fellowship,” a reference to Lord of the Rings. By the time he turned 20, he was growing cannabis. Determined to turn his life around, he got married, took a job driving a postal truck, and graduated with a degree in computer science from the University of Iceland, where he was voted Prankster of the Year. “Diarrhea,” an attorney would later explain. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”. If Mr. X does exist, he remains at large, as do the 550 stolen Bitcoin computers. “I kept my head down as much as I could.”) By the time the alarm was sounded back at the prison, Stefansson was approaching Sweden. “It’s a calm space,” Detective Helgi Petur Ottensen assures me. “Screaming, yelling, stealing, biting.” Around the age of six, he met his best friend and partner in crime, Hafthor Logi Hlynsson. Major crime is almost nonexistent; in 2018, there was only one murder in all of Iceland. In Iceland, a suspected crime ring has pulled off a series of coordinated heists, resulting in the theft of 600 bitcoin-mining computers from data centres as well as a home in Iceland. One night in late 2017, a man named Ivar Gylfason received a strange phone call. One wintry day, a German cryptocurrency entrepreneur named Marco Streng stepped off a plane at Keflavik International Airport. Currently, this is Iceland's "Big Bitcoin Heist." The cold weather allows for the expensive and delicate hardware you need to do this activity function more efficiently than it would in any other conditions. What do you think about the Iceland mine thieves? His wife saw fleeting figures lurking around their home. First published on March 3, 2018 / 9:49 AM. Authorities in that sparsely populated island nation on the Arctic Circle say that it’s the largest series of robberies ever to hit Iceland. Matthias Karlsson confessed to the Advania heist and was sentenced to two and a half years; his brother, Petur the Polish, received 18 months. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The alarm sounded, and they fled. The mine was only six days old. His job was to keep watch over two hangar-like buildings that held rows of small, box-like computers, the size of two cartons of cigarettes, stacked in towers as far as the eye could see. 2 Min Read. Genesis Farming, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mines, in the data center near Reykjavík. Drumming up that computational power usually means lots of computers -- and thus lots of electricity. “Cold,” he says, removing his heavy woolen cap and shaking the snow out of his thick beard before sitting down for a hunk of Icelandic beef. Then he catches himself. Suddenly, the restaurant’s front door blows open and Sindri Thor Stefansson enters, accompanied by a burst of frigid air and a gust of snow. Stefansson and the rest of the gang might have stopped there. It was like an assignment.”, Together, the five men were an Icelandic version of the “Ocean’s 11 gang,” says Alla Ámundadóttir, who covered the case for the country’s major newspaper, Frettabladid. Then, in the new millennium, Iceland’s three biggest banks found a way to get rich quick off of foreign debt. Chipotle plans to give away $100,000 in both Bitcoin and free food this Thursday. About 600 computer servers used to mine bitcoin were stolen in Iceland in a series of large-scale robberies in December and January, according to police.. It has been hugely volatile, posting some dizzying intra-day rises and falls over the past year or so. They raided a Bitcoin mine owned by a Russian couple they suspected of being the thieves. His iPhone, unlocked by police, contained a road map of the crimes. On Friday, it was trading just below the $11,000 mark. “Just one more, to get a bigger mining facility.”. His rap sheet soon included 200 cases of petty crime. Stefansson had been tracking the routine of the security guard who would be on duty that night. First there was the brawn: Matthias Jon Karlsson, a quiet, husky guy who worked in a home for special-needs kids, and his younger brother, Petur Stanislav, nicknamed “the Polish.” Next, the beauty: Viktor “the Cutie” Ingi Jonasson, a good-looking guy with a degree as a systems administrator. “There was no security,” a guard tells me. So he and his team turned to more old-fashioned forms of technology: Using telephone data, rental car records, bank accounts, and wiretaps, they were able to connect the gang with Ivar Gylfason, the security guard they had blackmailed. Photograph by Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images. The total prison population for the entire country seldom rises above 180. “I was watching his movements,” he says. “We didn’t have anything else on them,” the detective says, “so they were released.”, But the Bitcoin thieves were far from finished. Weeks later 31-year-old Sindri Stefansson was caught and sent to a low-level prison. It was a hot, constantly blinking trove of devices, lashed together with tangles of cables and wires, all dedicated to a single job: mining the cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin. Why is the price of Bitcoin dropping like a stone? Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Also see: To the Bottom: Cryptocurrency Exchanges Seem Locked in Fee Rat Race Nonexistent. Police question suspects in cozy “conversation” rooms decorated with soothing photographs of swans. Looking for more? He felt he was being followed. What came back was…nothing. They were stealing the digital presses used to print money in the age of cryptocurrency. “Yes,” Gylfason replied. The woman—a feisty, 66-year-old entrepreneur—had been convinced by her two “computer nerd” sons to give them $50,000 to open the mine. The relative offered Gylfason cash in exchange for information about the mine. Ottensen was impressed with how nice the suspects seemed. All rights reserved. The trio brazenly posed for a picture in front of the De Bijenkorf department store wearing triumphant smiles and sunglasses. “We were so surprised! On December 5, 2018, to protect their privacy, the suspects entered the courtroom the same way they had entered the Bitcoin mines, their faces covered—in Haffi’s case, by a Louis Vuitton scarf. The total take, Stefansson calculated, could be as much as $1.2 million a year—“forever.” Because, with the stolen computers, Stefansson and Mr. X would establish their own Bitcoin mine. They also descended on Stefansson, who had sold his home and was preparing to move to Spain with his wife and kids. Thieves steal 600 powerful bitcoin-mining computers in huge heist In Iceland, police are hoping a power surge will lead them to the criminals' stash. Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.”, “If you were Mr. X,” I ask him, “how would you grade the Big Bitcoin Heist?”, “A masterpiece,” he says. Everything is related: electricity, air, heat, cooling systems. Five days later, on December 10, the Borealis Data Center told police that someone had tried and failed to break into their facility at Asbru, attempting to disable the alarm by gluing the security sensors. CYBER PUNKS Last December three separate raids accounted for the stolen units, from a warehouse near Iceland’s capital city Reykjavik. Then, during a 10-month stint in prison with Hlynsson, he managed to get clean. On January 16, 2018, the job commenced. Only Stefansson chose to show his face to the cameras. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-heist-computers-stolen-in-iceland Mastermind Who Planned Iceland's Biggest Bitcoin Heist Jailed for 4.5 Years Last year, Sindri Stefansson was arrested for his part in what has been described as the biggest heist Iceland has seen – over $2 million worth of Bitcoin mining equipment stolen in an operation that left police baffled. They were stealing the presses that print digital money. “It was exciting and fun, and we wanted to do another one,” Stefansson recalls. There was cheap geothermal energy, literally rising from the earth, to power them. One of the suspects has now fled the country to Sweden, although it … The warehouse at the local AVK Data Center suddenly needed more electricity—a lot more electricity—for something called Bitcoin. The success of Streng’s operation, which grew into the world’s largest Bitcoin company, attracted other miners to Asbru. He was the lone guard at the Advania data center, housed in a former U.S. naval base not far from the Reykjavík airport in Iceland. They met at a friend’s house in Reykjavík to go over the plans. The International Monetary Fund pumped $2 billion into the economy to stave off an even greater disaster. “Maybe the computers have been running the whole time,” Stefansson tells me.

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