A woman #NewZealand charged with murdering her biological mother allegedly used Bitcoin transactions and fake cryptocurrencies to scam thousands of USD from her mother just days before she passed away. Prosecutors said Julia DeLuney created fake profit screenshots and demanded a non-existent withdrawal fee of 18,000 USD from her mother.
Scams and the Victim's Death
Julia DeLuney is facing murder charges in the Wellington High Court related to the death of her mother, Helen Gregory, 79. Prosecutors allege that DeLuney staged the scene to make it appear that her mother fell from the attic, but forensic results showed the injuries were inconsistent with a fall.
Financial history shows that DeLuney transferred over 90,000 NZD (about 53,000 USD) to crypto platforms in a year, mainly from family and friends' money, particularly 26,000 #NZD (about 15,600 USD) from her mother. She lost over 40,000 USD in crypto investments. Two days before Mrs. Gregory's death, DeLuney emailed her mother, stating that the crypto investment yielded a profit of 160,000 USD and requested a withdrawal fee and taxes of 18,000 USD, which a crypto expert later confirmed was completely fabricated.
According to testimony from family friends, DeLuney reassured her mother that everything was safe, but in reality, she used the money to pay off credit card debt, buy lottery tickets, and pay for other services, with only 1,200 USD invested in crypto. Although DeLuney believed that crypto would help her conceal her actions, the blockchain analysis company Chainalysis indicated that tracing crypto transactions is often easier than tracing traditional cash transactions due to the transparency of blockchain.
