Weird! He stole 17 million pieces of information from a company and threatened to extort 20 bitcoins

Source: City Business Daily

Recently, the Changqiao Police Station of the Wuzhong Public Security Bureau received a report from a citizen named Jin, saying that he was the administrative director of a well-known online food sales company in Suzhou, Wuzhong District. The company received anonymous emails to several of its external mailboxes, saying that the company's database had been leaked, and more than 7 million registered members and more than 10 million transaction orders had been obtained. The other party threatened to leak this information and demanded 20 bitcoins (worth about RMB 100,000).

This case is the first in Wuzhong District. After receiving the report, the Internet Monitoring Brigade of Wuzhong Public Security Bureau and Changqiao Police Station immediately set up a special task force to conduct investigation. The task force spent 10 days, after a lot of data analysis and query, and investigation and waiting for the den. In mid-August, with the assistance of the Yuncheng City Police in Shanxi Province, they successfully arrested Zhao, a suspect suspected of extortion, in an apartment in Yanhu District, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, and seized the mobile phones, computers and other items used in the crime. The Bitcoin involved in the case was also successfully recovered.

After preliminary investigation, the 26-year-old Shandong suspect Zhao confessed that in late July, he successfully logged into the database server of the company in Suzhou through the code notes written by the program, and obtained the company's user list of more than 7 million and order information of more than 10 million. After that, he sent a blackmail email to the chat group owner of the "VIP customer group" through email, extorting 20 bitcoins worth more than 100,000 yuan from the company on the grounds of leaking the company's user list and order information.

At present, the criminal suspect Zhao has been criminally detained by Wuzhong Public Security Bureau, and the case is still under review.

Related link: What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin was originally a kind of online virtual currency, similar to Tencent's Q Coin, but it can already be used to purchase items in real life. It is decentralized, anonymous, can only be used in the digital world, does not belong to any country or financial institution, and is not restricted by geographical location. It can be exchanged anywhere in the world, and is therefore used by some criminals as a tool for money laundering. In 2013, the US government recognized the legal status of Bitcoin, which caused the price of Bitcoin to soar.

Bitcoin can be used to cash out and can be converted into the currencies of most countries. Users can use Bitcoin to purchase virtual items, such as clothes, hats, equipment, etc. in online games. As long as someone accepts it, Bitcoin can also be used to purchase items in real life.

On January 7, 2014, Taobao released an announcement, announcing that the sale of Bitcoin, Litecoin and other Internet virtual currencies and other commodities would be banned from January 14.