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Toronto crypto company CEO kidnapped, held for $1M ransom before being released
- lukol 2y agohttps://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- hinkley 2y agoMy first thought on seeing the article title was, "wow that's a pretty expensive wrench"
- Terr_ 2y ago"Oh, so now you want a centralized trusted authority to 'meddle' in monetary transactions..."
- kaliqt 2y agoIt's nothing to do with money, everything to do with violence, that the state expressly allows by prohibiting self defense.
- datavirtue 2y agoI hope he didn't kidnap himself.
- tartoran 2y agoI don't want to speculate but I wouldn't be surprised if he planned it all along to run away with customer's money. Not unheard of in the crypto world. Hope he makes it home safe.
- gkoberger 2y agoHey, maybe. But that’s a gigantic accusation to make with no proof against someone who was likely in a terrifying situation.
- aliasxneo 2y agoThe fact that I'm watching comments like the one you're responding to get heavily downvoted, and then all of them suddenly propped back up speaks a lot to HN's hatred towards crypto. I mean, I get it, there are plenty of reasons to dislike crypto bro's, but immediately suggesting that they kidnapped themselves without any other evidence is insane.
- CPLX 2y agoIt's kind of like wondering if a bloody deer by the side of the road got hit by a car. Like you don't have any evidence that it was hit by a car, it could just as easily have been hit by a boat, or a low flying airplane.
- cooper_ganglia 2y agoNo, it's more like wondering if a bloody deer by the side of the road got hit by a low flying airplane.
- sokoloff 2y agoHave more crypto CEOs done rug pulls or been kidnapped by strangers? I’m pretty sure it’s the former.
- echoangle 2y agoYou’re ignoring the prior information of „it looks like an abduction“ though. That’s like seeing a dead body on the street and saying „well they look to be under 40, what are the odds that someone dies that young?“. The real question would be „Did more claimed kidnappings of crypto CEOs turn out to be staged or were real?“.
- talldayo 2y ago> but immediately suggesting that they kidnapped themselves without any other evidence is insane. Insane, or a famous form of security fraud that is mitigated by centralized banking systems and therefore highly attractive for crypto-owners. It's a heads-I-win tails-you-lose situation. They were either kidnapped because the attackers knew there was nothing the CEO could do to defend himself, or he kidnapped himself knowing it was plausibly deniable and couldn't be tracked through traditional means. In either case it's reasonable to examine the extenuating circumstances and wonder why cryptocurrency is such a large target for crime.
- giarc 2y agoTo run away with money or just simply to get media exposure....
- hinkley 2y agoHollywood plotline: Owner stages a failed kidnapping to dissuade people from trying a read kidnapping.
- amatecha 2y agoQuadrigaCX comes to mind, heh >_> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga_Fintech_Solutions#CEO's_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadriga_Fintech_Solutions#CEO...
- hinkley 2y agoHis body was never found because it was on a beach in Barbados drinking blended beverages?
- Terr_ 2y agoI assume that spending corporate funds (or worse, customer deposits) to ransom an employee would still fall under embezzlement. Much like if the same money was used for medical procedures that aren't covered by the health-plan.
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- changoplatanero 2y agoDid they pay the ransom or not?
- cheeze 2y agoRead the article? > He was released after a ransom of $1 million was paid electronically, a source close to the investigation said.
- neilv 2y ago(First, I hope that the victim is OK, and will recover quickly from trauma.) Would the kidnapping have been less likely to happen at all, if the random had to be paid in physical currency (e.g., paper bills, gold)?
- vhcr 2y agoOf course it would be less likely to happen with physical currency, you risk being caught when retrieving the money.
- Etheryte 2y agoThis is starting to look like a recurring theme. A similar incident happened this summer in Estonia [0], kidnappers from abroad travelled to Tallinn for the express purpose of kidnapping the owner of a crypto casino who resides there. Like it or not, information about wealth is starting to look like a serious safety concern, especially in crypto where retrieving the funds later is practically impossible. [0] https://news.err.ee/1609499827/attempted-abduction-of-australian-casinos-businessman-foiled-in-tallinn https://news.err.ee/1609499827/attempted-abduction-of-austra...
- mvdtnz 2y agoGreat idea to have your bank balance on a ledger that's publicly available. Another home run from the crypto lads.
- akimbostrawman 2y agoBTC isn't all of crypto
- Etheryte 2y agoWhile it's very hip to make fun of crypto bros, this isn't unique to crypto. You can easily approximate the net wealth of any company owner in the EU for example, since business registries are open (who owns how much of what company) as well as yearly financial statements (how much are the company's assets worth in a fiscal year). This isn't unique to the EU, it's simply the market I'm personally more familiar with, but I hope you see my point. What makes crypto unique in this setting is that it's easy for the kidnappers to receive ransom in a way that's very hard to trace back to them after the fact.
- hibikir 2y agoIt's not just about receiving the ransom, but how easy it can be to access the original funds. The story of, say, someone successfully kidnapping Bezos in a lightning operation and trying to take a good bite of his wealth is quite different than the same if you kidnapped Satoshi while he has access to his keys. It's not even in the tracing, but how much you can take away successfully, and how fast.
- pessimizer 2y agoWhy wouldn't you do this? If you know somebody's got a lot of bitcoin, you know everything is going to go perfectly. You could do a kidnapping like this in a couple hours and make your dinner date. If the victim doesn't wise up and get bodyguards or get out of bitcoin, you could kidnap them two or three times.
- beeflet 2y agoIf they are using multi-signature or some other setup you may need to kidnap a lot of people. So it does not necessarily require increasing physical security.
- ajb 2y agoGreat thread on what it takes to do crypto in Russia : "In contrast, Russian cryptobros that I know tend to act very, very lowkey. The fewer people know about your activities, the better. Posting about dealing with crypto in social media is absolutely unthinkable. Why? Because that makes you too easy and lucrative prey" https://x.com/kamilkazani/status/1579145927373508609?lang=en-GB https://x.com/kamilkazani/status/1579145927373508609?lang=en...
- m3kw9 2y agoIt just takes a hammer to crack your wallet code
- hitekker 2y agoThe new story he discusses is quite dark: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-unregistered-underground-prison-russia-28198343 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-unregistered.... Worth a read. Some of his points sound reasonable to me. > 2. [Non-violent entrepreneurs] are an abnormality. They create prosperity, yes, but they may flourish only in the artificial environment where the high-end violent entrepreneurs are being (constantly!) wiped out. They're the hothouse flowers, to put it simply > 3. Much of the outer world is destitute because of violent entrepreneurs. Violent entrepreneurs are not wiped out -> they wipe out the non-violent ones -> the country cannot create stuff -> It is destitute > 7. Non-violent entrepreneurs have prospered under artificially secure conditions and having (unknowingly) outsourced their security. If they don't understand it, you'd be much better off ignoring their advice when it comes to security and foreign policy.
- m3kw9 2y agoHe paid, when the bad guy runs out of money, he knows how to get more
- buzzerbetrayed 2y agoHe’s alive and can get better security. Maybe it makes the problem worse for others, but this is a no brainer decision when your safety is on the line.
- a13n 2y agoI feel like there’s insurance for this kind of thing
- AYBABTME 2y agoIf I were that guy, I'd go all in on FBTC or some ETF. Keeping a stash of distilled gold in your house is a huge liability.
- throwaway984393 2y ago[dead]
- lz400 2y agoAh the good old $5 wrench crypto attack vector strikes again
- arscynic 2y ago[dead]
- aurareturn 2y agoYes. Crypto is absolutely toxic. Just go into any crypto sub on Reddit. Any. The only thing people care about is the price going up. They'll do anything for it to go up including lying to their friends and family. They'll do free marketing for the crypto they bought, hoping to get more people to buy into it. After all, crypto has no utility so the only way they can make a profit is if they entice more people to jump in.
- cromka 2y agoI imagine this is how the Gold Rush must have played out, too.
- tromp 2y ago> Just go into any crypto sub on Reddit. Any. How is https://old.reddit.com/r/grincoin https://old.reddit.com/r/grincoin toxic? Not all crypto are about number go up. Or about enriching its creators...
- BoorishBears 2y agoFirst post I click on is someone banned from Wikipedia trying to use ChatGPT to force a wiki page through. Another post is someone apparently faking the coin Also seems to be completely dead.
- cal5k 2y agoCEO of a (different) Canadian crypto company here. Two things are simultaneously true in Canada right now: 1) the government has become unwilling/unable to actually keep repeat violent offenders in jail (and has totally failed to prevent them from acquiring illegal firearms), and 2) the law essentially outlaws the use of any tools (firearms, pepper spray, knives) for the express purpose of self-defense. It's functionally impossible to get a concealed carry permit in Canada. They just don't issue them, even if you have a restricted firearms license, even if you're a high-profile individual, and even if there's an immediate threat to your life. You have to rely on police and, if you can afford them, expensive private security who probably can't carry a firearm either. I should note that the kidnappers in this case (plural) were all armed. The politicians, of course, are protected by the armed Parliamentary Protective Service. They just don't believe you deserve similar protection.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoHuh, violent crime in general is up [1]. [1] https://thehub.ca/2024/09/21/violent-crime-has-seen-the-most-increase-30-percent-of-all-crime-categories-in-the-past-decade/ https://thehub.ca/2024/09/21/violent-crime-has-seen-the-most...
- mosselman 2y agoThe article claims violent crime is up 30% over the last decade. An important note the article only mentions in the subtitle is that this is recorded crime. So recording might have gotten better/loose or the methodology is super stable and violent crime exactly as it was defined 10 years ago is up. This seems unlikely, but plausible. From the article though: “The top violent crimes in 2023 were assault not using weapons or resulting harm, uttering threats, and assault employing weapons or resulting in harm.” To me the recording of “uttering threats” pops out as something that would easily change depending on society’s sensitivities. I am not saying violent crime isn’t up. These are just some thoughts that I wish were addressed in the article. The article doesn’t go into any of the recording methods and possible changes in what is categorised as a certain type of crime that could also impact the stats.
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- mayantony 2y ago[dead]
- gryt67 2y ago[dead]