Suspect flees to Sweden with PM

ICELAND: A prison inmate in Iceland suspected of masterminding the theft of about 600 computers that were being used to mine bitcoin and other virtual currencies escaped custody and fled yesterday on a passenger plane that a witness said also carried the nation’s prime minister.

Police said surveillance footage showed a suspect they identified as Sindri Thor Stefansson boarding a flight to Sweden at Iceland’s international airport in Keflavik. They said he travelled under a passport in someone else’s name. ‘‘He had an accomplice,’’ Police Chief Gunnar Schram said.

Investigators think Stefansson left the low-security prison where he recently had been transferred through a window. Guards did not report him missing until after the flight to Sweden had taken off.

Stefansson was among 11 people arrested earlier this year for allegedly stealing the powerful computers used in Iceland’s biggest theft. The stolen equipment is still missing. Icelandic media have dubbed the case the ‘‘Big Bitcoin Heist’’.

If the stolen equipment is used for its original purpose – to create new bitcoins – the thieves could turn a massive profit in an untraceable currency.

Stefansson was being held at the Sogn prison in rural southern Iceland, about 95km from the airport. The prison is unfenced, and inmates have telephone and internet access.

A passenger on the flight Stefansson allegedly caught to Sweden told national broadcaster RUV that Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir was also on the plane. Jakobsdottir was among five Nordic prime ministers who met with India’s prime minister in Stockholm yesterday. –AP