A thief posing as a delivery person in San Francisco made off with the victim’s cellphone, laptop and $11 million in cryptocurrency, according to a report.
The robbery happened around 6:45 a.m. Saturday at a home in the Mission Dolores neighborhood, according to a police report obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Police said that the faux-delivery person brandished a gun before tying the victim with duct tape. The suspect then fled with the victim’s digital assets, laptop and phone, according to the report.
It was not immediately clear if the victim was injured or if any arrests were made.
The bold theft comes as thefts involving cryptocurrency appear to be on the rise, with attackers reportedly targeting crypto investors for access to accounts worth millions of dollars.
A suspect pretending to be a delivery person made off with the victim’s cellphone, laptop and over $11 million in cryptocurrency, according to a report (AFP/Getty)
In Los Angeles, a former LAPD cop and an alleged Israeli gangster have been charged with the kidnapping of a teenage boy, who they allegedly threatened to shoot and water if he didn’t hand over his crypto.
Deputy District Attorney Jane Brownstone announced the arrests of Gabby Ben and former LAPD officer Eric Halem on Friday.
Both men pleaded not guilty to their charges, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Ben, 51, has been convicted of fraud twice and was previously deported to Israel, according to court documents. The district attorney claimed during a hearing that Ben has “ties to the Israeli mafia.”
Meanwhile, Halem, 38, is a 13-year veteran of the LAPD. He left the force in 2022, and was reportedly considering developing a reality TV show about his career, former associates told the LA Times.
Ben, Halem and four other men allegedly drove to a luxury apartment in Koreatown in Los Angeles last December to try to kidnap a young man who operated a cryptocurrency business.
The two men were armed when they entered the house and found that the young man was not there. Once he returned, they handcuffed him and demanded he open his crypto wallet to allow them to steal his money.
According to the district attorney, the young man tried to get out of the situation by giving them access to an empty wallet.
The kidnappers then threatened to shoot the young man in the leg and waterboard him in the shower if he did not comply. Eventually, the young man relented and gave them access to a cryptowallet that held $350,000 in cryptocurrency, prosecutors say.
It was not immediately clear if the San Francisco Police Department had arrested the suspect who carried out the robbery while pretending to be a delivery person (Getty)
Both men have been denied bail and are awaiting trial.
The incident also comes months after a cryptocurrency investor was arrested in Manhattan after allegedly holding an Italian businessman captive for more than two weeks inside his luxury apartment in New York City.
The businessman told authorities that he arrived in New York on May 6 and went to John Woeltz’s apartment. Woeltz then allegedly stole his electronic device and passport before demanding the merchant’s Bitcoin password.
When the businessman refused, Woeltz and another man allegedly held him captive and tortured him for more than two weeks, including shocking him with wires, holding a gun to his head and suspending him from the ledge of the five-story building.
Woeltz was charged with two counts of assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon.