Bitcoin millionaire narrowly escapes armed attack by a robber

Crypto holders nowadays should exercise caution with regard to not only their funds but also their personal security, a recent incident of attempted burglary in Norway on a bitcoin millionaires’ home affirms this. Earlier this year a local high profile bitcoin investor in his early forties had barely managed to escape from a robbery at his house when an armed man tried to get inside forcibly. This time it was a businessman who had been working in the crypto industry for almost ten years, and the incident took place at his apartment in Oslo. In this case, too, an armed man showed up at his door and asked him to get down on the floor. The incident was reported by the Norwegian broadcaster TV2 and thereby acted a reminder to all crypto investors to be careful.

Interestingly, in this case, when the intruder armed with a shotgun aimed at the victim, the latter refused to comply and give away the money and escaped by jumping off his balcony on the second floor. Whether the victim has suffered any major or minor injuries is still not known with certainty. TV2 has also reported that the businessman owned a company in the crypto industry and available financial statements show that his wealth is worth almost 11 million USD. The details of the robbery have been made public only recently although the incident had occurred in May this year. The case is scheduled for a trial on October 17 and 18 in Oslo; however, the victim’s attorney and defense lawyer of the perpetrator refrained from commenting.

The victim has thus pulled a brave act as the indictment drafted by the Attorney General’s Office alleged that the suspect had threatened the victim with “Lie down, or I’ll shoot.” However, no shot was fired before the victim barely escaped, who had come in the spotlight in recent times for the significant fortune that he had made with his decade long engagement in the cryptocurrency sector. Norway had also seen similar incidents earlier like the brutal murder of a 24-year-old bitcoin investor in Oslo after he had sold his bitcoins for cash. Although there is some doubt on the possible link of the murder to the bitcoin sale, yet the incident had managed to disturb the crypto community.

Since crimes related to cryptocurrency holders are on the rise, a few simple steps may be undertaken as precaution, besides getting an arms license or installation of a state of the art security system at home. One such step is non-disclosure of one’s earnings, which simply means one need not talk about or show off the wealth that he has made with the bitcoins he has bought. There is a very high chance of such news getting spread by word of mouth or social media, and thus one needs to be cautious. One should also never post his wallet addresses online as this gives access to criminals to see how much cryptocurrency their targets own. In case one needs to post his wallet address online, they should not store much wealth in it and use it only for the specific purpose. One can also use an anonymous cryptocurrency or a coin mixer so that criminals cannot trace the transactions as these can be publicly viewed otherwise. One should also have a wallet that can be used as a bait that has a small amount as compared to overall crypto wealth, in case of armed assault the funds can be transferred to that wallet which the assailants can take away.

Such parallel incidents have also taken place in Kerala, in India this month, and also with a Russian cryptocurrency investor. Therefore such precautions have become extremely significant in the light of a rising number of cases of wealthy cryptocurrency holders becoming victims of robbery and kidnapping at gunpoint.