Russian crypto miner kidnapped for 15 million ruble ransom

  finbold.com 3 h

As the cryptocurrency sector grows larger, its participants increasingly become targets of hacking attempts, rug pulls, and even outright threats to their lives, including in the shocking case of the kidnapping of a crypto miner in the city of Izhevsk, Russia.

Specifically, a criminal gang had recently targeted a 23-year-old cryptocurrency miner, forcibly taking him from the yard in front of his house and driving away in a vehicle registered to a Perm retiree on December 25, according to a report by Ren TV on December 27.

Afterward, the kidnappers, one of whom was familiar with the victim, reached out to his brother via Telegram, demanding a ransom in the amount of 15 million rubles (around $166,000). Otherwise, they said they would plant drugs on the abductee and hand him over to the police.

However, the authorities managed to quickly find and detain the perpetrators, who already had a criminal record, including for prior charges of robbery and extortion, and who are now facing up to 12 years in prison.

Kidnapping cases in crypto

Interestingly, this is not the first time criminals have targeted individuals in the crypto industry. For instance, in December last year, Aiden Pleterski, Ontario’s self-proclaimed ‘crypto king,’ became a victim of kidnapping, forcible confinement, and assault by a group of five people.

Recently, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said that criminals had abducted executives from a client of the crypto exchange and forced them to empty their crypto wallets, incurring a loss of about $12.5 million. Luckily, the crypto trading platform managed to freeze about $11.8 million.

Executives from a client were lured on a ‘business trip’ to Montenegro, where they were abducted and forced to empty their wallets. Total loss ~$12.5m.

We investigated the on chain activities and reached out to our partners earlier today to have the wallet frozen, as all of the…

— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) November 10, 2023

In a more tragic case, the body of John Forsyth, a missing ER doctor and crypto millionaire, appeared in the Missouri Ozarks in May. However, according to his family, a mutual friend told them that he had been kidnapped and released earlier in February 2022, in the case the source alleged was ‘crypto-related.’

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