{"id":49362,"date":"2021-09-13T17:19:17","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T14:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=49362"},"modified":"2025-09-02T12:19:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T09:19:15","slug":"three-sbu-officers-face-charges-over-kidnapping-of-a-businessman-and-extortion-of-7-btc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/three-sbu-officers-face-charges-over-kidnapping-of-a-businessman-and-extortion-of-7-btc\/","title":{"rendered":"Three SBU officers face charges over kidnapping of a businessman and extortion of 7 BTC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine has established the involvement of three officers of the Cyber Department of the Security Service (SBU) in the kidnapping of a cryptocurrency trader and the theft of money from him. This is reported in the ruling of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p>According to the investigation, in autumn 2020, senior management of the SBU received information that the entrepreneur had a large amount of cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>In broad daylight on 1 October 2020 in Kyiv, outside a pub on Mykhailivska Street, security forces approached the businessman and shoved him into a Volkswagen T5. In the car they took the victim&#8217;s mobile phone and keys to the apartment, from which two laptops and a tablet were subsequently removed.<\/p>\n<p>Then they brought the trader to a forest near Parkova Road and, for about an hour and a half, beat him inside the car and demanded to hand over $200 000. After the refusal, the security forces transported the kidnapped person to the Shevchenkivske Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>There they continued to extort funds, lowering the amount to $80 000. The businessman agreed and called his wife, who transferred 7 BTC (at the time equivalent to the ransom) to the cryptocurrency wallet indicated by the security forces.<\/p>\n<p>After this, one of the SBU officers filed a report stating that the entrepreneur had allegedly been detained by them late on 1 October as a person wanted for extradition at the request of the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n<p>According to the State Bureau of Investigation, the criminal group included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Deputy Head of the First Directorate of the Department of Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Information Security sphere of the SBU;<\/li>\n<li>Head of the Department of Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Information Security sphere of the SBU&#8217;s Sumy Region Directorate;<\/li>\n<li>Senior operative of the 3rd Department of the 1st Directorate of the Department of Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Information Security sphere of the SBU.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They were charged with theft of cryptocurrency, robbery with violence, kidnapping, and abuse of office.<\/p>\n<p>All three suspects were placed under house arrest. They have been suspended from their posts.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation is also examining the involvement of eight more SBU employees.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in July, a Ukrainian blogger <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/ukrainian-blogger-staged-her-own-kidnapping-for-a-5-btc-ransom\">staged her kidnapping for a ransom of 5 BTC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to ForkLog news on Telegram: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/forklogfeed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ForkLog Feed<\/a> \u2014 the full feed of news, <a href=\"https:\/\/telegram.me\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ForkLog<\/a> \u2014 the most important news, infographics and opinions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine has established the involvement of three cyber department officers of the Security Service (SBU) in the kidnapping of a cryptocurrency trader and the theft of money from him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,1143,1444,16],"class_list":["post-49362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-intelligence-agencies","tag-law-enforcement","tag-ukraine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"21","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49362","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=49362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49364,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49362\/revisions\/49364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}