Police in the British county of Lancashire have seized $48 million worth of crypto assets from a group of people accused of bitcoin fraud. The theft and money laundering began in 2017 when members of the group discovered a glitch in an unnamed Australian crypto trading platform.

Over the course of several months, the scammers withdrew funds worth more than $25 million from the crypto exchange and laundered the money through the purchase of real estate, luxury goods and digital assets, police said.

During the investigation, police seized 445 bitcoins and more than $1.5 million in bank accounts. Band members who were sentenced to between four and six years in prison. British law enforcement agencies said they were working with authorities in Australia and Finland to track down and bring to justice the crypto hackers.

The police said that the seized financial assets will be returned to the injured party. However, due to the increase in the value of bitcoins purchased by criminals, the amount seized exceeded the stolen one by approximately $4 million – the excess will be divided between the UK Home Office, the courts and Lancashire Police.

Earlier, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio (USAO) filed a lawsuit seeking the seizure of 947,883 USDT stablecoins from a fraudster who defrauded a local resident by posing as a security officer.