The director of one’s UK-based bitcoin exchange kidnapped the 2009 week continues to be released after he paid his captors a ransom of over $1 million in bitcoins.
Pavel Lerner, 40, was kidnapped on December 26 while leaving his office in Kiev, Ukraine. Based on local media reports, several men wearing balaclavas grabbed him and forced him right into a black Mercedes-Benz.
Lerner is definitely executive at EXMO, a UK-based cryptocurrency exchange that processes approximately $100 to $125 million in trades on a daily basis, primarily on the US dollar additionally, the Russian ruble.
After spending nearly two days in captivity, Lerner was published on December 28 after paying a ransom greater than $1 million in bitcoins, based on a report while in the Financial Times.
“He was kidnapped by an armed gang in terms of extorting bitcoins,” Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukranian official, told the publication, adding: “We have operative information he or she paid much more than $1m worth of bitcoins.”
Geraschenko testified that Lerner was in a “state of shock” when he was released and was “very lucky that he or she remained alive.”
On Thursday — while Lerner was in captivity — EXMO revealed that rrt had been the subject of a DDOS attack, however it is not known if the two incidents are associated. The exchange assured users that, even in Lerner’s absence, the trading platform was operating as always and that user funds remained safe.
As BlockExplorer explained its previous article on Lerner’s kidnapping, the incident may be the latest in a tiny but growing trend of consumers being targeted by criminals with regards to cryptocurrency wealth.
Because decentralized cryptocurrency transactions are uncensorable and, quite often, users retain power over their holdings, cryptocurrency executives and investors be attractive targets for criminal enterprises.
Consequently, users should recognizing the potential health risks of publicizing both their personal holdings along with their affiliation aided by the industry typically and take steps to secure their investments against theft, every bit as they would with traditional assets.