A man has
been jailed for sending a "potentially lethal homemade bomb" to a
Bitcoin firm in London - after it refused to reset his password for him.
The Met
Police, which investigated the case, said detectives could "only identify
one possible reason" for the Swedish national's actions.
He had
emailed the company, Cryptopay, in August 2017, to ask that he be sent a new
password.
Cryptopay,
however, refused, saying this contravened its privacy policy.
Jermu
Michael Salonen, 43, has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison at
Stockholm District Court.
He faced a
number of charges, including some for sending a white powder to Swedish
lawmakers - among them, the prime minister - in 2017.
Salonen had
addressed a padded envelope containing the device to two Cryptopay employees.
It was
delivered at some point in November 2017 to an office in Hackney, which had
housed an accountancy firm previously used by Cryptopay.
Several
months later, on 8 March 2018, a worker at the office began opening the package
but did not continue when they became suspicious of what was inside.
"We are
relieved that no one from The Accountancy Cloud team was hurt in this
incident," a spokesman for Cryptopay told the Media. "None of our
employees have ever worked at that address."
"The
vast majority of our employees work remotely across Europe, but we are
implementing additional security measures to prevent any potential harm to our
employees anyway.
"We are
thankful for both British and Swedish police, who were able to investigate the
case with outstanding professionalism."
"It was
due to sheer luck that the recipient ripped opened the package in the middle
rather than using the envelope flap which would have activated the
device," said Commander Clarke Jarrett at the Met Police Counter Terrorism
Command.
DNA found in
the package did not match information on UK databases, so it was analysed by
Interpol.
"Through
these inquiries, it was identified that the DNA matched those of Salonen, who
was known to Swedish authorities," the Met says.
A search of
Salonen's home discovered "numerous bomb components".
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