German court jails would-be UK hospital bomber
A 33-year-old Italian national has been sentenced to three years in prison on extortion charges for threatening to bomb British hospitals unless he was paid more than €11 million.
UK hospitals were among the target of the threats
A court in Berlin sentenced a man who tried to blackmail Britain s National Health Service (NHS) to three years in jail on Friday.
Judges said Emil A. demanded 10 million pounds (€11.5 million, $13.9 million) in Bitcoin or else he would blow up hospitals. The court found the Italian, who lives in Berlin, guilty of attempted extortion.
Threats to hospitals, MPs and BLM protesters
BBC News
By Tom Symonds
image captionThe hoaxer s targets included UK hospitals during the first lockdown
An Italian man in Germany has been sentenced to three years in prison for threatening to bomb NHS hospitals, Black Lives Matter rallies and UK MPs.
Emil Apreda, 33, sent emails from Berlin demanding £10m worth of Bitcoin to not carry out the attacks.
The National Crime Agency said he made his threats in the spring and summer of 2020 as the NHS struggled with Covid.
Senior officers kept the threats from the public for fear of patients being scared into not attending hospitals.
Apreda used encryption techniques and the dark web in an attempt to hide his identity, but police brought in behavioural, linguistics and cyber-crime experts to track him down.
Man who threatened to blow up NHS hospitals in extortion plot is convicted by court in Berlin
Emil Apreda, 33, said he would set off an improvised explosive device at a UK hospital unless he got £10 million in Bitcoins
26 February 2021 • 4:09pm
An Italian living in Berlin has been convicted of extortion after sending bomb threats to the NHS at the height of the pandemic, demanding £10 million in Bitcoins.
Emil Apreda, posed as a far right extremist and threatened to explode a bomb at an unspecified hospital in the UK unless his demands were met.
He sent a total of 18 emails over a six week period and also threatened to blow up a BLM protest and murder members of parliament.
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