Author
Tatsiana Yablonskaya
Taking strong interest in blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and IoT, Tatsiana Yablonskaya got deep understanding of the emerging techs believing in their potential to drive the future.
Over the last several months a number of big thefts happened in the streets of New York.
Owning digital currencies becomes as dangerous as having cash. Only over the last several months three bitcoin thefts took place in New York.
The most recent case says about a 28-year-old man in New York who arranged to meet with bitcoin seller at Craigslist.com. Obviously he couldn’t predict how the meeting would end. It turned out that it’s actually not necessary to have a purse full of cash to be robbed.
The arranged meeting took place at a corner of the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn at approximately 11:30 a.m. on May 27, 2015. A “future” thief led the man to the car under the pretence of sale completion. Instead of bitcoin the man saw a gun pointed to his face.
Robbers forced the victim to transfer $1,100 worth of bitcoin to their account, then grabbed his cell phone and off they went.
The man immediately called 911. According to the police “the crime is still under investigation”. Unfortunately for the man the theft wasn’t captured on surveillance video.
This isn’t the first case of cryptocurrency robbery in New York. On January 22, 2015 Dean Katz, a bitcoin dealer, claimed to happen upon a thief in Queens. The story seems to be quite similar to the one that happened recently.
Dean agreed to meet an unknown man to sell him bitcoin. The encounter in the car strongly reminding the one described above resulted in theft of $8,500 worth of bitcoin and $3,500 in cash. Katz admits that he has already heard a number of stories about bitcoin robberies.
Firefighter Dwayne Richards increased the number of victims in New York City. He also planned to meet a potential bitcoin buyer in the city. We could have said that the following events came in already known manner but he actually was even more unlucky. He was attacked by the robbers but managed to survive and has already recovered.
The thieves haven’t been arrested in any of three cases and unlikely they will ever be.
It’s hard to deny that while bitcoin is becoming more and more popular, its benefits are appreciated not only by bitcoin enthusiasts but bitcoin criminals too. There is not only a possibility of hacker attack but physical theft as well.
These cases can actually be a solid proof that it tends to be dangerous to make deals with unknown people. You should think through carefully before arranging meeting in the internet and always remember that unless you know a potential dealer personally, you should never fully trust him.
