How far are you willing to go to have some Bitcoin in your wallet?
With a price tag of nearly $50,000, very few people can afford to purchase 1 Bitcoin. However, Andrés Jesús Dos Santos Hernández was ready to do all it takes to become a Bitcoin millionaire. The 23-year-old Venezuelan man has allegedly defrauded several people of their Bitcoin by faking his own kidnapping.
While it is still unclear how Hernández got hold of the said Bitcoin, the director of the Scientific, Criminal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CIPC, scientific police), Douglas Rico, said that Hernández was a "financial operator" of several people and institutions linked to crypto activities.Hernández told his victims that their funds had been stolen after he was kidnapped. According to his sham story, his captors forced him to transfer his Bitcoin holding from Binance to several wallet addresses.
Hernández is now wanted by the country’s largest national police agency for the $1.15 million fraud case. So far, his whereabouts are unknown.
Although this is not the first time that kidnappers are asking for ransom in cryptos, Hernández’s story does not add up. Earlier this month, a Venezuelan merchant was killed after his family failed to pay a 0.5 BTC ransom for his kidnap. Similarly, in late 2017, an exec of Exmo crypto exchange was kidnapped and later released after paying a $1 million crypto ransom.