Man to face trial for alleged £8m Bitcoin theft

A man from County Down is to face trial accused of an international, multimillion-pound cryptocurrency fraud.

Jawad Yaqub, 45, from Ben Vista Park in Holywood, pleaded not guilty to all 25 charges against him at Downpatrick Crown Court on Thursday.

He is accused of stealing 397.504 Bitcoin belonging to Razormind Ltd.

At current market value, the cryptocurrency would be worth more than £8m.

In total, Mr Yaqub faces 19 charges of converting criminal property, four counts of fraud by false representation and single charges of fraudulent training and theft.

According to the prosecution case, Mr Yaqub was a director in Razormind Ltd but carried on his business "for a fraudulent purpose, namely to defraud participants in the DeOS [decentralised operating system] crowd sale."

The fraud by false representation charges allege that he claimed Razormind Ltd is "a world leading information technology services company" that provides a "wide range of services to a substantial and diversified client base" including corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals.

These supposed clients includes the Bank of America, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Centre for Responsible Lending, Chubb, Deutsche Lufthansa, Farmers' Mutual Group, Health Partners, Telefonica O2 and Texas Public Schools.

Mr Yaqub also allegedly claimed that he had "obtained an M.Phil and PhD from Queen's University Belfast."

Following the arraignment, defence KC Eilish McDermott said efforts to instruct a computer expert "will continue at pace and won't interfere in anyway with the trial date".

Th court heard that both defence and prosecution are liaising to "narrow the issues" ahead of the trial which Judge Geoffrey Millar scheduled for 4 March next year.

Freeing Mr Yaqub on bail, the judge said he would also review the case on 17 November to ensure it was progressing.