The accused had approached the trader as a potential customer
Last Friday, a crypto trader was kidnapped by four criminal in the capital of India and forced to pay in Bitcoin for his release. Two out of four criminals were juveniles.
According to the news shared by the local newspaper TOI, The victim (Arpit) was forced to sit in the car and asked to transfer bitcoin at gunpoint. The kidnappers also called his younger brother and asked for ransom for his release.
According to the DCP (East) Jasmeet Singh,
" One of the accused, Vikram (32), is a graduate, while the other Nitin Yadav(20), is in his second year of graduation being done through correspondence. They has roped in the juveniles to identify bitcoin traders. Vikram saw videos on Youtube to understand the trading system and decided to extort trader by posing as buyer."
Last Friday, the police received a call from Victim's brother Harshit about the kidnapped from Ganesh Nagar. He told the police that his brother had gone to collect the cash from the buyer. He later received a call from Kidnappers, in which they asked for bitcoin to release his brother. Kidnappers asked the victim to transfer two bitcoins but he could able to transfer 0.75 bitcoin only and then they let him go near the border.
The police started investigating the matter after the call and scanned the records or criminals who has used similar modus operandi and got in touch with informers and on Sunday, they got the tip-off that the accused men were in the outer Delhi. The four were apprehended from Kakrola, Rohini, Sultanpur Dabsa and Harveli Village. We strongly advise to avoid buying and selling crypto in cash and also from unknown people. We suggest to use legal channels as such cases are increasing day by day.