The suspect in the Taipei Metro case, surnamed Chang, had been unemployed for over a year, yet he was able to afford a gaming laptop with 48-bit encryption worth NT$90,000, rent in a prime area of Taipei, and expenses related to the crime. Police have launched an investigation into the flow of funds behind his crimes. In addition to regular remittances from Chang's mother, it was initially suspected that Chang, who had a background in computer science, used a cold wallet, but this possibility has now been preliminarily ruled out.
However, netizens have verified Zhang's email address. This newspaper attempted to register for cryptocurrency exchanges using his email address and found registration records on two compliant exchanges in Taiwan, but KYC was not completed, preventing him from using the platform's functions. Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that his funds were transferred through cryptocurrency.
Taipei City Police: Initial investigations rule out the possibility of cold wallet involvement.
According to reports , the suspect in the Taipei Metro random killing case (whose identity was declined to be revealed, and will be referred to as Zhang below) had no stable job since June of last year, relying solely on his mother's quarterly remittances of NT$30,000 to NT$40,000 and a single large remittance of NT$450,000. However, after deducting his expensive rent in Taipei's prime district and a gaming laptop worth NT$90,000, where did the money come from to purchase the items used in the crime?
Since the suspect, Zhang, graduated from the Department of Computer Science, the police initially focused on cold wallets. However, Taipei City police recently stated that, based on existing information, they have not yet found any evidence that Zhang used virtual currency or cold wallets, but they do not rule out any possibilities and will continue to expand their investigation.
Zhang's laptop was encrypted with 48 bits; even a brute-force crack would take a century.
It is reported that Zhang used an ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 gaming laptop, a top-of-the-line model released in 2023, with a market price of approximately 90,000 yuan, to plan the crime. It employs BitLocker 48-bit encryption, which even the original manufacturer cannot crack; brute-force attacks would take a century to decipher.
Furthermore, police discovered that Zhang's card payment failed when he booked the hotel room due to insufficient funds, but a few days later, a sum of 3,985 yuan in cash suddenly appeared, giving him just enough money to withdraw. The source of this deposit has become a key point of suspicion in the police's investigation.
What is BitLocker?
BitLocker is a full disk encryption (FDE) technology built into Microsoft Windows, introduced starting with Windows Vista. Its purpose is to protect data on hard drives from being read by unauthorized persons, even if the hard drive is removed, stolen, or the system is attacked offline.
Zhang had registered a cryptocurrency exchange in Taiwan, but there is no evidence that he used it.
The internet celebrity "Four-Fork Cat" discovered Zhang's email address from the university's case report: forrestwork0141@gmail.com
Following this clue, it can be discovered that forrestwork0141 and @forrest0141 also became Zhang's online aliases, and even his Twitter account can be found. From December 2020 to January 2021, he posted 38 articles, all of which were completely black images without any text. The bizarre posting pattern is chilling.
If you try registering on various exchanges using the email address forrestwork0141@gmail.com, you can see if a particular email address has already been registered. Based on the test results:
- Bito Exchange: Registered
- MAX Exchange: Registered, but user tests revealed that Zhang apparently did not complete KYC, therefore the exchange cannot be used.
- Binance: Not registered
- Bybit: Not registered
- OKX: Not registered
- Bitget: Not registered
- BingX: Not registered
Investigations revealed that Zhang had registered with a compliant exchange in Taiwan, but there is currently no evidence to suggest that his funds were transferred through cryptocurrency. Whether in the Ko Wen-je case or this incident, when the flow of funds remains a mystery, the media often suspects the use of cold wallets.
( What is a cold wallet? How does it work? The most complete cold wallet guide )
The typical logic behind these cold wallet scams is as follows: Party A deposits cryptocurrency into a cold wallet and then hands over the physical cold wallet and its private key (annotation key) to Party B. If Party B needs the money, they can simply use the private key to transfer the assets out of the cold wallet. On the blockchain, it's just a record of one in and one out, but in reality, the assets have already been transferred.
This article, "Random Murder Case: Investigation into Financial Transactions! The Killer Registered with a Cryptocurrency Exchange, Yet No Evidence of Use Has Been Found," first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
