{"id":19591,"date":"2024-12-16T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T17:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/australian-woman-kidnaps-saudi-royal-for-bitcoin-ransom\/"},"modified":"2024-12-16T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T17:30:00","slug":"australian-woman-kidnaps-saudi-royal-for-bitcoin-ransom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/australian-woman-kidnaps-saudi-royal-for-bitcoin-ransom\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Woman Kidnaps Saudi Royal for Bitcoin Ransom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Australia, 24-year-old Catherine Colivas kidnapped a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family, demanding $40,000 in bitcoin for his release. This was reported by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/melbourne\/article-14196073\/TikTok-kidnapper-Catherine-Colivas-bitcoin.html\">Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, Colivas and three accomplices found their victim through a dating app, arranging a meeting. After the encounter, the woman asked her companion to walk her home, where her accomplices were waiting.<\/p>\n<p>The royal was then beaten, tied with cable ties, and threatened with having his fingers cut off with a knife.<\/p>\n<p>The kidnapped individual, a crypto trader, paid for his freedom with bitcoin worth approximately $40,000, transferred through a friend. The criminals also stole keys to the royal&#8217;s home, from which they took designer clothing, a Playstation 5, and several iPhones.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, the victim was released. He immediately contacted the police and went to the hospital with head and wrist injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Colivas pleaded guilty to kidnapping, extortion, reckless bodily harm, theft, and possession of a weapon. She faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. However, an Australian court sentenced her to only 30 months of community service.<\/p>\n<p>The judge ruled that Colivas demonstrated &#8220;exceptional circumstances&#8221; required by law for avoiding imprisonment. These included her young age, difficult childhood, poor mental health, rehabilitation prospects, and the death of her brother during the trial.<\/p>\n<p>Other organizers of the incident also avoided prison sentences, offering &#8220;sincere apologies&#8221; to the victim.<\/p>\n<p>Back in November, unknown individuals kidnapped Dean Skurka, CEO of Canadian cryptocurrency company WonderFi, demanding $1 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Australia, 24-year-old Catherine Colivas kidnapped a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family, demanding $40,000 in bitcoin for his release. This was reported by the Daily Mail. According to court documents, Colivas and three accomplices found their victim through a dating app, arranging a meeting. After the encounter, the woman asked her companion to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[108,1154],"class_list":["post-19591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-australia","tag-crimes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"38","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}