Death threats fly as $100 million of Bitcoins disappear from Sheep Marketplace
Death threats fly as $100 million of Bitcoins disappear from Sheep Marketplace: A slew of angry user complaints have since alleged that the whole site had been operating for some time as a honeypot designed to collect Bitcoins in advance of a prepared heist, an accusation that if true would be an unprecedented example of a business calmly collecting money in order to steal it.
This was achieved by offering illegal drugs for unusually low sums of BTC while refusing to allow users to easily withdraw currency, a cover for the thief to run the BTC through a ‘tumbler’ to launder the currency while keeping them hard to track.
Most of the subsequent detective work seems to have been carried out by a single UK-based user, TheNodManOut, who is convinced the culprit is the Czech admin running the Sheep Marketplace site.
“I’ve been a very busy boy. All day, we’ve been chasing the scoundrel with our stolen bitcoins through the blockchain. Around lunchtime (UK), I was chasing him across the roof of a moving train, (metaphorically). I was less than 20 minutes, or 2 blockchain confirmations, behind Tomas,” he wrote on 2 December Reddit post that refers to the individual accused of the scam.
“I’ve just chased a thief through a washing machine for you.”