In short
- A 74-year-old man disappeared in May after leaving the house without his phone.
- Authorities believe that the disappearance is related to the crypto -photo of the man’s family. They have found evidence of fraudulent activity and imitation of him to communicate with family members.
- The man’s son, a hedge fund director, believes that someone has stolen the identity of his father and removed more than $ 1 million from his accounts.
Naiping Hou, 74, left the house on a Monday without his phone and never returned. Local law enforcement is of the opinion that the disappearance is linked to the crypto companies of his family.
Days later, his silver Toyota Yaris was abandoned near a hiking trail in Rancho Cucamonga.
He was missing on 4 May and the delegates of the Sheriff now suspect that you might have been abducted.
By July 7, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that its specialized research division is investigating the disappearance of Hou as “suspect”, finding proof of “extensive fraudulent activity” with regard to his bank accounts.
An unnamed suspect is said to have used Hou’s phone and “to communicate with family members,” is the explanation of the sheriff. Although no suspects have been mentioned in the case, researchers have not yet excluded false game.
Hou’s son, Wen Hou, has offered a reward of $ 250,000 for information that leads to the safe return of his father. He believes that someone has stolen the identity of his father and has emptied his bills of more than $ 1 million.
Wen, who earned a fortune in Crypto and since 2019 CIO of investment firm and Hedgefonds Coal Capital, said that his father had no reason to disappear.
“I miss him very much,” he told the local media. “He is a kind of guide for my life,” he said in an interview with KABC.
Nevertheless, rich crypto users often make goals by showing off online, neglecting online privacy/security or trusting insiders, “said Harris van Cryptocare.
Poor security habits, along with the “misconception that crypto is completely anonymous, despite traceable block chains,” he increases the vulnerability of a person, he added.
Snir Levi, founder and CEO of compliance and threat management platform Nominis, claims that many victims unconsciously expose themselves via social media, leaked data or wallet activities, making them easy goals for threats.
“Unfortunately, even today, people don’t understand that everything they post on social media can uncover their location and crypto richness,” he said Decrypt.
In addition to individual behavior, platforms such as Crypto exchanges are responsible for protecting users, especially when leaked data can link identities to wallet addresses, Levi believed.
Switches must protect the privacy of users and treat the data of their users “with the same caution that they treat crypto assets,” Levi said.
Hou’s disappearance reflects a broader pattern of physical threats that are digitally active.
A worrying trend
The trend is dubbed as “key attacks” in the crypto industry, where the term is used to describe how an often theft at a low level can become violent when attackers use strength to extract information from victims.
There is a clear increase in cases of “kidnapping people, threatening and holding to get their seed sense or to steal their money,” said Levi.
That observation is reflected by Nick Harris, founder of Blockchain -Forensic research and Cryptocare of Asset Restoration. Harris told Decrypt Those attacks of this nature are “absolutely on the rise”, with reference to 22 cases that are reported worldwide, halfway through the year.
Police and other authorities now use “cyber crime units and blockchain -forensic teams” to trace transactions for continuous investigation, Harris said.
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