Sony employee hacks company's email to steal $ 154 million and then convert it to Bitcoin

According to the published documents, Rei Ishii is the employee charged with stealing the aforementioned money. This guy proceeded to steal $ 154 million when the company transferred money between accounts. Ishii obtained the transfer information after performing the BCE attack (infiltrating the enterprise's email system).

Ishii does this by intentionally falsifying trading instructions. As a result, the money went to an account Ishii controlled at a bank in La Jolla, California instead of the accounts of Sony Life Insurance Company Ltd.

Next, Ishii transferred all the stolen funds to Bitcoin using Coinbase's automated mechanism. The number of Bitcoins that Ishii received was 3879 coins and then transferred to a cold wallet.

To prevent his bosses from investigating, Ishii sent threatening and ransom letters in English and Japanese. The content of the letter read: "If you accept the payment, we will return the money. If you file a criminal complaint, you will not be able to get your money back."

But all of Ishii's plans fell through. On December 1, after a coordinated investigation between Japanese law enforcement and the US FBI, the FBI seized 3,879,16242937 Bitcoins in Ishii's wallet. The private key was also seized, so the FBI transferred the above Bitcoins to their wallet.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department also quickly arrested Ishii, 32, and charged him with conspiracy to steal $154 million.

Kareem Winters

Update 22 December 2021