BERLIN – A 33-year-old Italian man was convicted Friday of attempted extortion for threatening to blow up a British National Health Service hospital unless he was paid off with 10 million pounds ($13.2 million) in crypto currency.
Defendant Emil A., a resident of Berlin whose last name wasn't given in line with German privacy laws, was sentenced to three years in prison.
Though he never made good on the threat against an unspecified hospital, it came during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic as the British health care system was struggling.
British authorities stressed how seriously it was taken at the time. Nigel Leary, deputy director of Britain's National Crime Agency's cyber crime unit, said that because of the difficulty of