Kaliningrad Court Sentences Crypto Investor’s Kidnappers

Two residents of the Kaliningrad region have been found guilty of kidnapping, extortion, car theft, robbery, and attempted murder, according to a statement by the local Investigative Committee.

In September 2021, they kidnapped a Kaliningrad resident who had substantial cryptocurrency savings. They held him for nearly a day in an undisclosed location, where they coerced him into transferring digital assets worth 39.8 million rubles to their wallets under threat.

Afterwards, the victim was beaten, drugged, and abandoned in a forest. Despite this, he survived and reported the incident to the police, leading to the suspects’ arrest.

Upon reviewing the case, the court sentenced one of the individuals to 15 years and three months, and the other to 12.5 years in a high-security prison.

In February, ForkLog reported that police in Phuket province issued arrest warrants for five Russians suspected of kidnapping a couple to extort cryptocurrency.