Teen Bought Google Ad for His Scam Website and Made 48 Bitcoins Duping UK Online Shoppers

A "sophisticated" teenager has had $2.88m in cryptocurrency confiscated after he set up a phishing site and advertised it on Google, duping consumers into handing over gift voucher redemption codes. From a report: The schoolboy set up a website impersonating gift voucher site Love2Shop. Having done that he then bought Google ads which resulted in his fake site appearing above the real one in search results, Lincoln Crown Court was told. Crown prosecutor Sam Skinner told Her Honour Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight that the boy, whose identity is protected by a court order, harvested $8,931 worth of vouchers in the week his site was active. Love2shop began investigating in April 2020 after a customer complained, at which point the boy took down his fake site. The stolen vouchers were converted into Love2Shop vouchers on the A-level student's own account. A later police investigation discovered 12,000 credit card numbers on his computer along with details for 197 Paypal accounts. On top of that, he had 48 Bitcoins: when police arrested him in August last year these were worth $275,000 but their value has risen tenfold since. Sentencing the boy earlier this week, HHJ Knight commented in court: "If he was an adult he would be going inside."

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