A 20-year-old man from Eelderwolde has been sentenced to four years in prison for cybercrime and illegal possession of weapons. Half of these are conditional.
The man was sentenced to five years in prison. The court finds it more important that the man has a job or studies and is supervised in the coming years.
The 20-year-old was arrested in June last year as an 18-year-old in a log cabin in the Stadspark in Groningen. The computer was running with illegal software. The man was busy scamming people by phone. He pretended to be a bank employee and tried to get login details.
A 17-year-old Groningen man was also in the log cabin. He was sentenced to 90 days in juvenile detention for his contribution, of which 44 days were suspended. The youngest must be supervised by the youth probation service and ensure a good daytime activity. Both must tolerate checks on possible cybercrime activities.
The case came to light through a report from a telecom company in The Hague. The company’s computer system had been broken into and SIM swaps tampered with. A SIM swap is an action whereby a mobile phone number is linked to another SIM card in order to commit fraud.
The company did an internal investigation and the computer address of the man from Eelderwolde emerged. The young man had been in the picture for a while when the agents raided the log cabin in Groningen. From his cell, the man ordered his brother to keep more than 70,000 euros in stolen crypto coins out of sight of the police.
This failed, because the police tapped the phones. The brother has now been tried by the juvenile court for this. The twenty-something told the court three weeks ago that he has contacted his victims and is cooperating in damage repair.