When did kidnapping for Bitcoin become a thing in Chicago? Well, it just did. Last October, six men orchestrated a brazen five-day kidnapping that sounds more like a Netflix series than real life. Their target? A family and their nanny, held hostage in an Airbnb while the criminals demanded a whopping $15 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Chicago’s latest crime trend: a family and nanny held hostage for five days while criminals demanded $15 million in cryptocurrency.
The scheme started with the oldest trick in the book – pretending to have damaged a garage door. Next thing you know, the victims were staring down gun barrels and being shoved into a white van. The captives were then taken to Forest Park Airbnb for their first night. Talk about a nightmare house call. During their five-day ordeal, the hostages were fed fast food, which honestly feels like adding insult to injury.
One suspect, Zehuan Wei, didn’t exactly win any awards for criminal mastermind – he got nabbed at the US-Mexico border in January. His five buddies? They’re still out there, probably sipping cocktails in China by now. The FBI’s got names: Fan Zhang, Huajing Yan, Shengnan Jiang, Shiqiang Lian, and Ye Cao. Good luck pronouncing those at the next police briefing.
The victims managed to contact family through WeChat during their captivity, and when it was all over, they casually walked to a dry cleaner and caught an Uber to the hospital. Because apparently, that’s how kidnapping victims roll these days. The criminals used intimidation and firearms to force the victims into transferring their cryptocurrency. The criminals took advantage of crypto’s peer-to-peer transactions to avoid traditional banking detection.
Here’s the kicker – of the $15 million in crypto that changed hands, $9 million is still playing hide and seek with authorities. The FBI’s been busy with surveillance footage, DNA swabs, and tracking cryptocurrency wallets, but these crypto criminals were no amateurs.
This isn’t just some isolated incident either. It’s part of a growing trend where criminals target crypto holders, proving that the digital gold rush has a seriously dark side. The case has sent shivers through the cryptocurrency community, showing that sometimes your biggest problem isn’t a market crash – it’s a group of guys with guns who know what’s in your digital wallet.
