Local Icelandic media outlet Visir has reported that Sindri Thor Stefansson, the man who was behind the infamous heists of the data centers' equipment in February, has escaped from prison and left Iceland. According to sources, he used another man's passport and boarded a flight to Sweden, which also, by coincidence, took Iceland's Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir to an important meeting.
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Several days before his prison break, Stefansson was transferred to the so-called open prison in the southern part of Iceland, less than hundred kilometers from the Keflavik International Airport. The prison has very light security and the transfer was based on an assumption that Stefansson was not dangerous. When his disappearance was finally noticed, his plane had already left for Sweden. The BBC reports that an international warrant has been issued for his arrest.
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The series of heists, that were later named the "Big Bitcoin Heist," never involved the actual theft of cryptocurrencies, which has become a new trend nowadays, but the data centers' equipment for their mining. Some 600 machines were stolen and so far haven't been found. The Icelandic police have even addressed the country's power generation companies, requesting them to report any unusual power consumption spikes, which may indicate that the stolen computers had once again been activated.
