Bitcoin exchange Exmo boss Pavel Lerner, who was deported to the Ukraine in Ukraine on Tuesday, is free again. Unknown had paid a ransom Bitcoin worth about one million US dollar on Friday, after which the armed kidnappers the man released her .
Pavel Lerner is safe, but still under acute stress, according to an official statement from the Bitcoin exchange. The Exmo boss will therefore not comment on the case for the time being. The statement also states that Lerner does not have access to Exmo's financial assets. The payment of the ransom therefore came from another source.
Lerner is a recognized expert on blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies and is well known in the bitcoin scene in particular. The reactions to the violent abduction were correspondingly shaken, The 40-year-old had just left the office when several masked men dragged him into a black Benz. According to a report by the BBC, the local police confirmed that there had been a kidnapping, but did not elaborate on the circumstances or the victim.
Bitcoin awakens desires
As the kidnapping shows, the price explosion also arouses more and more desires among criminals. No one has ever acted as brutally as in the kidnapping in Ukraine. Until now, scammers have tried to get hold of the precious digital coins, mainly through hacks or the spreading of malware. For example, in the marketplace Nicehash of hackers, the proud amount of 4,736 bitcoins from various customer wallets were captured.
The Bithump trading center had also stolen $ 80 million of crypto money in the form of Bitcoin and Ethereum in a large-scale attack this year. The South Korean secret service claimsmeanwhile, to have evidence that was responsible for the theft of North Korea.
Given the possibility of anonymous transfers, Bitcoin is especially interesting for criminals. With ransom payments in cryptocurrencies, as in the case of Pavel Lerner, blackmailers are able to disguise their identity almost perfectly, which is why Bitcoin and Co. are also considered a popular means of payment for ransomware attacks.