As crypto heists become more frequent, a hacker has posted a message on a forum demanding his share from three cases involving a haul of over $17 million. If he doesn’t receive payment, he will reveal the robbers’ identities.
Crypto kidnappings: a hacker demands his share from the robbers
The number of crypto kidnappings and abductions has simply skyrocketed since the start of the year, with about a dozen cases already recorded. Faced with the scale of this phenomenon, the police are beginning to carry out targeted arrests, mostly involving organized crime groups.
These cases are directly linked to certain data leaks from the French tax authorities, but above all to a targeted hack of the crypto accounting platform Waltio, which recently returned to the spotlight following a post on the famous hacker site, BreachForums.
Indeed, a PGP-encrypted message—intended solely for its recipients—dated early February refers to “serious incidents that have occurred over the past 5 to 6 months in France, involving three victims who were abducted from their homes and had large sums of money stolen (…) linked to the Waltio website’s database.”
A hacker threatens to reveal the identity of crypto robbers
A digital justice operation? Quite the contrary; it looks more like an attempt to force the criminals behind these attacks to honor their commitment to pay a portion of their loot—estimated at over $17 million in total—to the hacker who stole the data needed to identify their targets.
All of this was carried out by a group of three individuals who received our assistance in hacking the Waltio website’s database, who always promised us 15% of their earnings, and who were also previously involved in a data theft case.
Message from the hacker
This goes far beyond simple cybercrime
In total, these three cases resulted in the theft of over $17 million in cryptocurrency. As a result, the hacker behind this message is demanding a payment of $2.5 million, failing which they will reveal the identities of the thieves to the French police.
To make this threat more explicit, a countdown timer shows how much time the criminals have left to fulfill their commitment. This is a disturbing reality, according to cybersecurity specialist Seblatombe on the X network, who describes it as “a chilling scenario that illustrates just how far data breaches can lead when they fall into the wrong hands.”
If these claims are confirmed, this would go far beyond the scope of simple cybercrime: leaks of personal data could be used to identify, locate, and target individuals for kidnappings and real-world extortion.
Seblatombe
A case that echoes the recent wave of arrests targeting 11 individuals suspected of participating in the kidnapping of the father of a crypto entrepreneur based in Dubai, who was quickly identified as a computer whiz. According to investigators, this is more likely to be a case of “revenge among members of the same criminal network.”
