Latvian Police Intercept Dramatic Crypto Theft And Murder Plot

The Latvian police announced they have successfully intercepted a kidnapping and murder attempt of two people with one of them having significant crypto assets holdings and also torture of another victim that the attackers tried to obtain private keys from. In our latest crypto news, we take a closer look at the case.

According to an official release from the Latvian police service, the attacker, a male resident of the capital Riga, born in 1989, targeted an individual with about $600,000 worth of crypto and fiat holdings and even prepared “tools” that were intended to be used to torture the victim. The police stated that after obtaining the crypto funds, the attacker intended to kill his victim and was searching for accomplices that were based outside of the country.

Wrench attack thwarted in Riga. Step up your OPSEC – I expect attacks to trend in correlation with the exchange rate. https://t.co/XwUu4uz18G

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 22, 2020

The perpetrator was arrested and charged with criminal law violations but the police also said that the man had studied the victim’s daily routines and had prepared a venue where he would enact the tortures and the murders. The police said that the suspect was arrested during the first week of October by the elite OMEGA police counterterrirosim unit and the man-made a full confession.

A crypto advocate on Twitter claimed that these “wrench attacks” could “trend” as crypto prices continue increasing after PayPal’s recent decision to embrace BTC and major altcoins.  So in order to protect yourself, before you go into creating a way to protect yourself with weapons or security systems, know that there are cheaper ways that you can protect yourself when it comes to owning crypto.

The smartest thing to do when it comes to digital wallets is to don’t tell anyone about it. this means that you should not brag around on how much money you made on your last trade and don’t tell people that you don’t know how you purchase crypto’s and most certainly don’t show pictures of your wallet to show off.

Also, don’t post your addresses online. Once you do that, criminals can see how much crypto you own and you can become a target. If you need to post a wallet address online for whatever the reason is, make sure that you don’t store a lot of crypto in it. Also, remember that the transactions from these wallets into other wallets that you own can be publicly seen. If you are moving bigger amounts from wallets that are linked to your name you should consider using an anonymous cryptocurrency or a coin mixer to make the transactions impossible to trace.