On November 25, according to the New York Post, a Hong Kong man was sentenced to seven years in prison in Canada for his involvement in an extremely brutal home invasion robbery: four attackers disguised as mail carriers broke into a family home in British Columbia, subjected the family of three to 13.5 hours of beatings, waterboarding, and sexual assault, and ultimately stole $1.6 million worth of Bitcoin.
The court described it as an "attempted, long-term violent crime." The attackers scouted the location and monitored the victims for weeks, installing cameras outside the house to lock onto their encrypted assets. During the torture, the robbers forced the couple to hand over their encrypted account passwords.
• Wife subjected to waterboarding, husband stripped and beaten. • Robbers threatened to cut off the husband's genitals. • They also threatened to harm their young daughter, using psychological coercion against the parents.
Ultimately, the robbers transferred $1.6 million worth of Bitcoin from the victims' accounts. The following morning, the victims' daughter successfully escaped and reported the incident to the police. Police later found the parents injured and bound, with the husband naked from the waist down. Court documents revealed that the attackers had scouted the family's home for weeks and installed cameras around the house to learn about their crypto assets and daily routines. Before leaving, they also attempted to destroy evidence by soaking the family's electronic devices in water mixed with bleach. The case was described by the court as an "extremely violent, brutal, and meticulously planned crypto robbery."
