Bitcoin Trader Robbed and Pushed Out of Car in Hong Kong
The trader exchanged 15 bitcoin for HK$3 million before being robbed of both.
Jan 5, 2021 at 12:18 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/GSYRDBUOQVCHPBAUAQZGBEZ4MA.jpg)
Hong Kong
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Hong Kong police are searching for robbers who lured a trader into a meeting on Monday and stole cash and bitcoin before pushing him out of a car.
- The criminals tricked the 37-year-old man into a meeting outside a hotel in North Point on Monday, where two men arrived in a car to pick up the victim, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
- Police said the trader had chatted with the men online before agreeing to the in-person meeting to sell the men 15 BTC.
- The trader was paid around HK$3 million (almost US$387,000) in cash in the car after he'd transferred the bitcoin to the two buyers, said the report, citing a police source.
- The men then drove the trader an estimated 6 kilometers where they met another three men before forcing him out of the car on a Hong Kong hillside.
- The man was not injured, but the cash and two mobile phones were stolen, per the report.
- The 15 BTC, at a price of around $31,000 on Monday, would have been worth US$465,000, meaning approximately US$852,000 was stolen in total.
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