It’s not just the investors that cryptocurrencies are attracting, but the kidnappers also. In a small campaign of shock and awe in the Izhevsk region in Russia, a 23-year-old crypto miner was abducted from the front of his house. Ren TV, a Russian news channel, reported the incident on December 27, 2023. The abductors put him in a Niva registered to a pensioner residing in the Perm region.
Situation Under Control Now
Four kidnappers were involved in the incident who reached out to the victim’s brother for a ransom of 15 Million Rubles (nearly $160K). Authorities have found and detained the kidnappers who threatened the brother to plant drugs and hand the victim over to the police in the event of refusing to transfer the ransom. Abductors had criminal records in the past and now face 12 years in prison sentence. One of them knew the victim personally according to the report.
Earlier this month, independent news network BNN reported a girl’s kidnapping in the Kaluga region, where criminals demanded 1.5 Million ransom in cryptocurrency. The nation’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) confirmed these details. The girl was later found crying on a roadside in the Tula region. She was immediately taken to the hospital and was escorted later for further inquiries about the abductors.
Yuri Mayorov, the founder of the cryptocurrency project PRIZM, was beaten by four unknown men on the streets of Isakovsky Street in Russia in February 2018, a local news outlet Forklog reported. The attackers gained access to his laptop having a digital wallet that reportedly possessed 300 Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency in the market. The asset traded at around $11,000 at this time, making the value of the victim’s asset to around $3.3 Million.
In the same month, another incident came into being where the kidnappers cut the victim’s face until he gave up all his crypto possessions. They robbed him of nearly 100 BTC (approximately $1.1 Million). Thankfully, the victim managed to survive despite being tortured and abandoned on 20-degree frost.
Russia is among the most crime-prone nations in Europe. Nearly 1.4K crimes have been recorded per 100K population in 2021. The region has an incarceration rate of 328 prisoners, per 100K population again. Kidnapping has come down to some extent so to speak. 519 incidents were reported in 2010 which reduced to 325 in 2018.
Cryptocurrencies are subjected to a risky investment attributing to extreme volatility in the market. While several cryptocurrencies delivered a massive profit in 2021, crypto winter left investors in shock as the sector shed its value in bulk. The market capitalization reached nearly $3 Trillion during this year, only to fall under a trillion dollars in the months that followed.
An event called Bitcoin halving is due next year which is speculated to boost prices of the assets, delivering profits to the currency holders. Anyone holding BTC in Russia should be cautious of this.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/12/30/russian-kidnappers-used-a-pensioners-car-to-abduct-crypto-miner/