Local reports reveal that a Venezuelan man is currently on the “wanted list” of the authorities in the country. 23-year-old Andrés Jesús Dos Santos Hernández allegedly stole 23.6 BTC (appr. $1.1 million) from a group of investors and tried to conceal the crime by faking his own kidnapping.
National director of the Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas (CICPC) Douglas Rico reportedly confirmed the incident, narrating the allegedly fake story that Hernández has been telling investors regarding the missing bitcoins.
The official said,
[He] simulated a kidnapping where his captors allegedly forced him to enter the Binance platform and make transfers to different digital wallets, depleting all the crypto assets in question.
Hernández’s whereabouts remain unknown at this time. However, the Venezuelan CICPC has declared him wanted, putting up a picture of him on their official Instagram account. He is being charged with fraud and money laundering and faces time in jail if convicted.
Until authorities finally arrest the alleged victim, the latest incident serves as a warning to crypto investors to never trust a third party with their assets, with the hope of earning higher returns. Such promises are usually fake and almost always result in loss of funds.
Crypto Crimes on the Rise
The rise in the price and popularity of cryptocurrencies coincides with an increase in the number of bad actors working hard to separate unsuspecting investors from their hard-earned wealth.
According to a study by crypto-security firm, CipherTrace, the total amount of money lost to crypto crime in 2021 is already over $681 million. While the figure includes those lost to fraud and theft, the study notes that the majority of the losses (up to 76%) involved decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Earlier today, DeFi Protocol Cream Finance added its name for a second time to a list of DeFi protocols that have lost money to security breaches. The project lost roughly $25 million to a flash loan attack.
