Most European governments have yet to legislate and regulate the cryptocurrency market.

The process began to take shape with the application of “FATF” standards and the transfer of the EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) into national legislation.

Laws that go beyond pure anti-money laundering rules are also likely to be adopted.

Some crypto-friendly jurisdictions have already done so.

In the meantime, some real life events and facts force the authorities to deal with this phenomenon and recognize some of its basic characteristics.

“Money” is one of the features of decentralized digital currencies that government institutions generally do not want to recognize.

Read:Top 10 countries that support bitcoin … get to know it

But when these currencies are exposed to crime, that changes suddenly for some reason, as the recent ruling of the Russian Supreme Court showed.

A case in France now provides further confirmation that cryptocurrencies can be considered money even without specific regulations stipulating this.

In this context, a businessman involved in one of the cases of money embezzlement, money laundering, unauthorized access to the automated data processing system and criminal data manipulation was charged.

Businessman steals 182 bitcoins from his former company

The investigation was launched at the request of a digital technology startup launched in 2013.

The company was running successfully until conflict and disagreements erupted regarding the company’s development strategy.

In the end, one of the company’s CEOs was fired from his position at the company, so he decided to leave the country in search of better job opportunities.

Previous partners claimed that he acted from abroad and managed to steal 182 bitcoins, around 1.2 million euros at the time of writing.

According to Le Parisien newspaper, which covered the story, this is the third largest crypto theft in French history to date.

Read:The Federal Reserve prohibits its officials from trading stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrencies

Russian media reported that the embezzlement of funds occurred between December 2018 and January of this year.

According to the post, the technical expert knew the company’s electronic system well and was able to hack it without being detected.

It also withdraws funds in multiple transactions to ensure that each one is smaller than the limit which will automatically send a security alert to the company.

Read:SOL cryptocurrency hits new all-time high with record transaction volumes

It took the Anti-Cybercrime Unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office several months to identify the wallet to which the cryptocurrency was transferred and link it to the suspect.

The man was arrested on December 22 in the French Calvados department upon his return to the country.

Despite the prosecutors’ request for a permanent arrest, the accused was released by court authorities and placed under “strict judicial control” only.

We previously mentioned the news, but with new updates in the case, we wanted to add them to the original topic to complete the picture.

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