A trader in the Netherlands was reportedly subjected to gruesome torture in front of his four-year-old daughter. A local publication suspects the man’s holdings may have been the motivation for the .
Threatened, Tortured, and Seriously Injured
Dutch publication reporting indicates that three robbers, somewhat disguised as , invaded the trader’s home. The man was threatened with firearms and seriously injured with a ‘heavy drill’, according to the report.
After an hour-long ordeal for the man and his daughter, the suspects left and are now being hunted as part of a major investigation. A fifteen-strong team of Dutch , usually in charge of investigations, are working on the case. The team’s allocation shows the seriousness of the incident and Dutch authorities focus on solving the . There is no information to suggest that his holdings were stolen.
De Telegraaf’s research discovered the victim was a trader, which local sources confirmed. The man reportedly worked in Italy and Thailand. The house in Drenthe, the Netherlands, where the incident took place had apparently been purchased in cash by the owner.
Cryptocurrency Owners Repeatedly Targeted by Criminals
De Telegraaf outlines another recent case in the Netherlands, where an Enschede man was jailed for laundering two million Euros worth of .
Criminals not only target legitimate owners but also those known for money laundering using and other digital currencies.
In December 2017, just as ’s price reached its $19,000 peak a 35-year old man was arrested and charged in New York for armed robbery and kidnapping. Louis Meza was accused of holding the victim in order to obtain the keys to a digital . Meza was able to steal Ether . At the time district attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr said:
This case demonstrates the increasingly common intersection between cyber and .
Meza reportedly knew his victim owned substantial amounts of and Vance added:
We can expect this type of to become increasingly common as values surge upward.
Later that month a exchange executive, Pavel Lerner, was for a $1 million ransom in Kiev, Ukraine. The ransom was paid, and Lerner released, with the under investigation by Ukrainian .
Gun ordeal of family in ‘s first heist 😧
Read more:
— Chris Gledhill (@cgledhill)
A Global Issue
In January 2018 two from the UK were robbed at gunpoint by masked home invaders in front of the couple’s infant child. The two victims had conducted over 100,000 trades are were forced to transfer their balances to the robbers.
reported its first robbery in February 2018 when four men were arrested after pretending to want to buy . They managed to steal 18 , worth $188,000 at the time, from their victim.
In October 2018 was arrested in France accused of murdering a Norwegian investor Heikki Bjørklund Paltto. The may or may not have been connected to Paltto’s investments, some of which he’d recently cashed in reportedly to purchase an apartment.
The latest robbery is certainly gruesome and serious with no details as yet to the value stolen. If balances have been transferred to the attackers the pseudo-anonymous nature of addresses may make them difficult, but not impossible, to trace.
Investor Sues AT&T for $224 Million after Mobile-Linked Theft via
— Michelle Ray (@GaltsGirl)
Published at Mon, 25 Feb 2019 20:09:00 +0000
