Bomb Threats Demanding $870K Worth Of BTC Sent Out Across Russia

Bomb threats have been launched across Russia, demanding $870,000 worth of Bitcoin which were supposedly stolen from the defunct crypto exchange WEX, have also forced many people to seek shelter. In our latest bitcoin news, we read more about what exactly is happening in the country.

For more than a month, a group of anonymous blackmailers has started launching bomb threats, saying they consider blowing up schools, courts, shopping malls, and transportation stations unless someone sends them 120 bitcoin that was reportedly stolen from the WEX exchange to their address.

So far, no one has been hurt and there were no bombs found to be detonated but still, more than 750,000 people had to leave their homes and buildings to evacuate since the threats started on November 28 according to the Russian news agency Interfax reports. The court buildings in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were the first offices to receive the bomb threats. So far, only a small amount of bitcoin of about $0.48 worth was gathered and sent to the address in one single transaction on December 9.

The anonymous actors blame the Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and the former officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Anton Nemkin, for the theft of the bitcoin coins from the exchange, citing a report by the BBC published back in November. The story also cited the testimony of the alleged administrator of the WEX, Alexei Bilyuchenko. According to him, both of the FSB officers forced him to hand over all of the bitcoin from the wallets of the now-defunct exchange, BTC-e. He also claimed that Nemkin and Malofeev demanded that he hand over the entire database of the WEX users to them.

WEX froze the withdrawals and also slowly stopped all operations last year, very soon after it was sold by the previous CEO Dmitry Vasilev to the new one, Dmitry Khavchenko who was a known militia fighter in the civil war in Ukraine, who was also very close to Malofeev. Thousands of dollars worth of crypto were gone from the WEX’s wallets between July and October 2019 and all of the users started filing police reports. The ex-CEO of the exchange Vaselev got arrested earlier this summer in Italy with the cooperation of the Russian police.
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Vaselev got released soon after.