Nigerian law enforcement agencies recently arrested a politician on charges of laundering digital funds stolen from Patricia Technologies in May. CEO Hanu Fejiro praised the politician’s arrest and said the recovered funds would “go a long way in appeasing Patricia’s users.”
Politicians implicated in complex crimes
Nigerian police have arrested a politician on suspicion of attempting to launder digital assets stolen from cryptocurrency exchange platform Patricia Technologies earlier this year. According to police, Wilfred Bones fraudulently transferred more than $60,000 of his $750,000 in stolen funds into his own bank accounts.
As Bitcoin.com News reported in May, Patricia lost more than $2 million in digital assets after hackers breached her platform. She said the theft left a financial hole in the cryptocurrency platform, forcing Patricia to seek out funds to refund her affected users.
After announcing the arrest of the politician, Nigeria Police Spokesperson Prince Olumuyiwa Adejobi said:
He was registered as being involved in a complex offence. Wilfred Bonse conspired to launder Fifty Million Naira (N50,000,000), an amount arising from the fraudulent misappropriation of Sixty-Seven Million Naira (N607,000,000) from the Patricia Technology company account to his own bank account through a cryptocurrency wallet. I did.
But a spokesperson said the investigation was still ongoing and vowed to punish those behind the hack.
important update
Thank you to all NPF-NCCC members.
More updates coming soon. #patriciatechnologies https://t.co/qSHGjZ3EsQ
— Patricia (@PatriciaSwitch) November 24, 2023
In a post by X (formerly Twitter), Patricia praised the Nigerian law enforcement agencies for arresting Bonse. CEO Hanu Fejiro said the recovered funds “will go a long way in appeasing Patricia’s users.”
Meanwhile, confirmation of Bonse’s arrest and recovery of some of the funds comes just days after Patricia said it had started issuing refunds for its first batch of users.
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Source: Bitcoin.com