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A Manager of the Exmo Bitcoin Exchange Has Been Kidnapped In Ukraine (bbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the lost-and-found dept.

CaptainDork shares a report from BBC: A manager of the Exmo Bitcoin exchange has been kidnapped in Ukraine. According to Russian and Ukrainian media reports Pavel Lerner, 40, was kidnapped while leaving his office in Kiev's Obolon district on December 26th. The reports said he was dragged into a black Mercedes-Benz by men wearing balaclavas. Police in Kiev confirmed to the BBC that a man had been kidnapped on the day in question, but would not confirm his identity. A spokeswoman said that the matter was currently under investigation, and that more information would be made public later on. Mr Lerner is a prominent Russian blockchain expert and the news of his kidnapping has stunned many in the international cryptocurrency community.

4 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. obligatory XKCD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    https://xkcd.com/538/

  2. Kidnapping will be back in style by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This traditional form of crime has fallen out of favor in modern societies because of the increasing difficulty of making an untraceable money drop. Ransoms in cryptocurrency eliminates this problem. Now we can expect to see kidnapping's comeback in the US and Europe.

    1. Re:Kidnapping will be back in style by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cryptocurrencies do not make "untraceable money drops" more easy - on the contrary, if you transfer such money from some legitimate account to that of a criminal, every future use of that money is recorded in detail in the "distributed ledger", ready to be used for investigation now or in 30 years. .

      If this were true, then why would there be a ransomware problem? Now that entire national healthcare systems are getting hit, intelligence agencies have a strong interest in tracing the path of ransomware payments so that the perpetrators can be quietly strangled with their own intestines as an example to their cohorts.

      No, apparently all you have to do is 'tumble' coins through a few exchanges and that blockchain of custody no longer functions as a tracer.

  3. Re: Expect battle royale as soon as coin tulips wi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm guessing your day job is fiction writer