Hong Kong man sentenced to 7 years in prison in Canada for conspiring to rob virtual assets

A Hong Kong national was sentenced to 7 years in prison for participating in a virtual asset robbery that took place in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada.

On the 22nd (Korean time), according to Cryptopolitan, Judge Robin McQuillan of the Port Coquitlam court in British Columbia, Canada, sentenced 35-year-old Hong Kong national Chan Tsz Wing Boaz to 7 years in prison, saying the defendant, together with accomplices, threatened and assaulted the victim's family with firearms and forced the victim's daughter to undress with her passport placed beside her.

The crime is reported to have been planned targeting a B.C. area investor who had been flaunting virtual asset investment success online. The group bound the victim's family and demanded 200 bitcoins (about 26 million dollars), but when the victim refused, they are said to have stolen about 2 million dollars worth of bitcoins from an accessible wallet.

This case is classified as a so-called 'wrench attack (wrench attack, an attack that targets virtual assets and causes physical harm)'. Last year, more than 60 kidnapping and robbery incidents targeting virtual asset holders occurred worldwide. Representative cases include the 2022 'Crypto King' kidnapping in Ontario, Canada, and the case in which the family of the founder of French hardware wallet 'Ledger' was threatened with finger amputation.