The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to return $154 million stolen from a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation and converted to bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin). According to the report, the funds were initially stolen by Rei Ishii, an employee of Sony Life Insurance in Tokyo. The DOJ believes Ishii diverted the $154 million when the company tried to transfer the money between its financial accounts.
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"Ishii allegedly did this by falsifying transaction instructions, which caused the funds to be transferred to an account that Ishii controlled at a bank in La Jolla, California. Ishii then quickly converted the funds to bitcoin cryptocurrency," the regulator said.
As per BleepingComputer, Ishii purchased 3879 BTCs via Coinbase. As a result of the co-joined investigation, the FBI traced bitcoin transfers and identified the owner of the purchased cryptocurrency. The report says Sony and Citibank in addition to Japan's National Police Agency, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, and JPEC (Japan Prosecutors unit on Emerging Crimes) offered "significant assistance" in the investigation.
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