A thief pretending to be a delivery person in San Francisco made off with a victim’s cellphone, laptop and $11 million in cryptocurrency, according to a report.
The robbery took place around 6:45 a.m. Saturday at a home in the Mission Dolores neighborhood, according to a police report obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Police said the faux-delivery person brandished a gun before tying the victim up with duct tape. The suspect then fled with the digital assets, a laptop and the victim’s phone, according to the report.
It was not immediately clear if the victim was injured or if any arrests were made.
The bold theft comes as robberies involving cryptocurrency are seemingly on the rise, with reported attackers targeting crypto investors for access to accounts worth millions of dollars.
In Los Angeles, a former LAPD cop and an alleged Israeli gangster have been charged in the kidnapping of a teenage boy, whom they allegedly threatened to shoot and waterboard if he didn’t give up his crypto.
Deputy District Attorney Jane Brownstone announced the arrests of Gabby Ben and former LAPD officer Eric Halem on Friday.
Both men pleaded not guilty to their charges, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Ben, 51, has been convicted of fraud twice and was previously deported to Israel, according to court documents. The district attorney claimed during a hearing that Ben has “ties to the Israeli mafia.”
Meanwhile, Halem, 38, is a 13-year LAPD veteran. He left the force in 2022, and was reportedly considering developing a reality TV show about his career, former associates told the LA Times.
Ben, Halem and four other men allegedly drove to a luxury high-rise apartment in Los Angeles’ Koreatown last December to try and abduct a teenager who operated a cryptocurrency business.
Both men were armed when they entered the home and found the teen was not there. Once he returned, they handcuffed him and demanded that he open his crypto wallet to allow them to steal his money.
The teen reportedly tried to bluff his way out of the situation by giving them access to an empty wallet, according to the district attorney.
The kidnappers then threatened to shoot the teen in the foot and waterboard him in the shower if he did not comply. Eventually, the teen relented and gave them access to a cryptowallet that held $350,000 in cryptocurrency, prosecutors say.
Both men were denied bail and are awaiting trial.
The incident also comes months after a cryptocurrency investor was arrested in Manhattan after allegedly holding an Italian businessman captive for more than two weeks inside his luxury New York City apartment.
The businessman told authorities that he arrived in New York on May 6 and went to the apartment of John Woeltz. Woeltz then allegedly stole his electronic devices and passport before demanding he be given the businessman’s Bitcoin password.
When the businessman refused, Woeltz and another man allegedly held him captive and tortured him for over two weeks, including shocking him with wires, holding a gun to his head and suspending him over the ledge of the five-story building.
Woeltz was charged with two counts of assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon.