A cryptocurrency investor from Moscow, the capital of Russia, was attacked two days ago by thieves who tortured him until he gave them the access to his electronic wallet in which he was storing around 100 bitcoins.
The victim, whose name was not disclosed, was intercepted and assault in solitary place of the Russian capital city, according to Forklog, a media outlet. The attackers were cutting his face with a knife until he transferred his cryptocurrencies to the wallet indicated by the attackers. According to the current price of bitcoin, the stolen amount is worth around 970,000 US dollars.
After the transfer was performed, the victim was left on the street at minus seven degrees Celsius. Fortunately, he managed to survive and he was rushed to the hospital where he is currently recovering. The police is working on the case and the investigation is in progress.
A similar case of robbery occurred in December last year when Pavel Lerner, the CEO of EXMO cryptocurrency exchange was kidnapped in Ukraine. The kidnapping took place around noon and Lerner was set free after a ransom of around one million US dollars in bitcoins was paid to the kidnappers.
As a consequence of the huge increase of the value of cryptocurrencies during 2017, it is crucial that the investors protect their digital currencies by protecting their personal data when they manage big amount of money, since, as we can see, they are not only interesting to hackers and intermediary thieves. A few weeks ago, a court in New York accused an individual of robbery and kidnapping during which he took possession of almost two million dollars in ethers.
The accused individual was armed when he attacked and robbed a citizen of New York in November last year. After entering a vehicle for a meeting agreed beforehand between both parties, the man waiting in the vehicle pointed a weapon at the victim and made him hand over his cell phone, wallet and keys to his house.
The most recent case happened in Taiwan where the local police arrested four men for the armed robbery of 18 bitcoins worth around 180 thousand dollars. The assault happened during a prearranged physical sale of the aforementioned bitcoins between the attackers and the victim. The seller was accompanied by a trustful friend, but when he showed the bitcoins stored on his cell phone to the attackers, he was assaulted and the coins were transferred to another wallet.
It is highly important to take precautions when it comes to publicly disclosing your personal information when dealing with cryptocurrencies, especially since the blockchain technology allows to access information about the wallet of the investor.
