Criminals Threaten To Explode Amsterdam Businesses Unless They Pay With Bitcoin (BTC)

A very curious case involving Bitcoin has happened recently. Business owners in Amsterdam are reporting that criminals are threatening them with bombings and acts of terror unless they pay an extortion fee in Bitcoin.

Emails have been sent to multiple business owners, according to a local media outlet, and they demand $50,000 EUR worth in BTC. If the money is not paid, they affirm that they will throw hand grenades or shot on the businesses until they close. The Dutch law makes businesses required to shut down for some time in case there is a shooting in them.

The threat affirms that the entrepreneurs should probably give them money to prevent having their business shut down. Victims are required to open an account in either Coinbase or Coinmama and then they have to buy Bitcoin and transfer it to a specific address.

The whole list of businesses threatened is not complete yet but it was reported that at least three coffee shops and one nightclub have been threatened. If the payment is not made within five days, the criminals affirm, they will double the fees to $100,000 USD.

Failure to maintain confidentiality would make the value go as up as $200,000 EUR. The email affirms that they will take action to shut the business down for at least three months in this case. No business has confessed to having paid the fees until this report.

Obviously, this is not a very common case. Generally, when criminals decide to extort Bitcoin from victims, they use computer malware to seize the computer of the victim in the so-called ransomware cases. This time, however, the criminals have decided to use a considerably more violent technique to demand the ransom.

Ransomware is very lucrative and it does not expose the attacker, so this is probably why it is more common than direct physical attacks. In fact, millions of USD have been stolen using ransomware in recent years.

The only recent case of using violence as a way to get Bitcoin was employed by a group of criminals that attacked the Bitcoin mining farm Kryptovault lately. The company received bomb threats after having noise complaints with neighbors. At the case, however, the noise was the main issue, not the ransom money.

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