He could've prevent all of this by a) making sure his traffic was blackholed when the VPN went down and b) adding another layer from a free service (like TOR or a proxy or another VPN). He also should've been actively using the VPN so his traffic patterns wouldn't stand out as much, and so his purchase would be justifiable. If he really did buy the VPN 6 months ahead then he was a fool to leave the subscription dormant. If he wanted a fire and forget VPN subscription, he also could've bought the subscription with stolen credit cards. He would've had to make sure to only connect to the VPN through something like TOR, but credit card fraud is pretty difficult to trace if you do it right.
Had he put in a little more thought and preparation then I still don't know if he would've gotten away with it, but at least he'd be in a better position. He wouldn't have to lie to the FBI agents and they probably would've had to catch him by going after the source of the place where the data was leaked instead.
Opsec is hard, but this is just embarrassing for someone in the know trying to steal 50 bitcoin. I'm also not sure why he did it. Suddenly owning a few million in crypto would be noticed, unless he didn't spend any of it, ever. What was his plan, just quit his job and move away right after the hack?
Had he put in a little more thought and preparation then I still don't know if he would've gotten away with it, but at least he'd be in a better position. He wouldn't have to lie to the FBI agents and they probably would've had to catch him by going after the source of the place where the data was leaked instead.
Opsec is hard, but this is just embarrassing for someone in the know trying to steal 50 bitcoin. I'm also not sure why he did it. Suddenly owning a few million in crypto would be noticed, unless he didn't spend any of it, ever. What was his plan, just quit his job and move away right after the hack?