In April 2018, Elliott Gunton, a teenager from Norwich, England, was caught by the police on the charges of hacking and his PC was taken hold of by the authorities.
He was convicted at Norwich Crown Court where he admitted five charges which included illegal data exchanges, computer exploitation and money laundering offences.
Gunton was subjected to a three and a half year community order which kept him from using internet and software and he was made to pay a sum of £407,359 by the court order.
On the charges of stealing sensitive information of people and selling it in exchange of pounds in cryptocurrency, the Norwich Crown Court sentenced him to 20 months imprisonment and let out owing to the time spent on remand.
On the examination of Gunton's computer, it was found that he had scheduled supplies of stolen data of people which included their contact information for malicious purposes like texts to carry out fraud.
At the age of 16, Gunton hacked a telecommunications firm and was found guilty of the same.
The teen made constant and sophisticated efforts to conceal his fraudulent acts and hide the payments from police and therefore he dealt in Bitcoin instead of hard currency. However, he happened to leave behind some parts of conversations where he negotiated criminal deals.
Referencing from a tweet made by Gunton last year, "Having lots of money is cool… but having lots of money without people knowing is cooler." He called himself as a "full-time crypto trader."
