In Poland, the police detained a suspect in an armed attack on the company FlyingAtom-an exchange of cryptocurrencies and gold. She is located in the city of Olsztyn in the north-east of the country, while the incident itself occurred at about 19:00 hours on January 22, local time.
The incident became widely known only now-after the arrest of the suspect. In general, the results of the raid are disappointing: two employees of the asset exchange platform were injured, and the situation of one of them turned out to be quite difficult. The doctors even had to cause him an artificial coma. We tell you about the situation in more detail.
Traditionally, we will start with an explanation: cryptocurrencies are virtual assets that cannot be touched with your hands. That is why in the vast majority of cases hackers steal them online. For example, they use malicious software for this purpose or simply convince victims to send them cryptocurrency and promise to send them a doubled amount in response. As a reason for sudden generosity, scammers mention some holidays or the achievement of certain goals. Well, for greater persuasiveness, hacked accounts – including celebrities-are used to notify about the «draw».
The cryptocurrency asset theft industry is huge. As we found out in January, for the whole of 2020, scammers replenished their wallets with the equivalent of $ 3.8 billion. The huge «earnings» are also caused by the innovation of the blockchain niche, which is still at an early stage of its existence.
Despite this, it is possible to steal cryptocurrencies offline, that is, outside the Internet. To do this, it is enough to gain control over a special device and find out its password or simply take possession of the so – called private key-a unique combination of letters and numbers that confirms the owner of the cryptocurrency address and allows him to dispose of the cryptocurrency on it. Such cases also happen.
Danger in the world of cryptocurrencies
According to local media reports, after the robbery, the masked attacker escaped with gold in the amount of 450 thousand zlotys, or about 120 thousand dollars. He did it from the exchange office on the fourth floor of a skyscraper in the city center. After the incident, the police secured the area and viewed the recordings from surveillance cameras, cordoned off several roads in the city and searched passing cars. The next morning, the block was reopened.
That is, the sources did not report the theft of media and devices with cryptocurrencies. Perhaps the robbers do not understand the principles of the blockchain or initially aimed at the precious metal.
On the same day, representatives of FlyingAtom published an ad offering a reward of 100 thousand zlotys for any information that could help identify the criminal. Already on January 24, the local cryptocurrency portal reported that the suspect was subsequently detained.
The publication quoted the press secretary of the city police department in Olsztyn, Andrzej Yurkun, who commented on the evening of January 23 that » in Bydgoszcz, the police detained a person who may be related to the attack.» The law enforcement agencies refused to provide additional information, according to Cointelegraph.
The next day, the exchange published a message on Facebook, in which it thanked the police for the successful arrest of the suspect, as well as medical workers for their constant assistance to the victims at the scene of the incident. After the attack, the exchange’s office was temporarily closed and will most likely resume work in early March.
Obviously, the company’s representatives need not only to move away from what is happening, but also to work on the mistakes. They will certainly improve their own security system to protect themselves from a possible repetition of an unpleasant situation. In addition, it is necessary to take care of the injured employees, who got more than the rest.
As we have already noted, although many incidents related to the theft of cryptocurrencies are committed in the virtual space, there is a constant risk of «physical» robbery in the industry. For example, at the end of January, an armed gang, posing as buyers of cryptocurrency, stole about 3.5 million Hong Kong dollars – or the equivalent of 450 thousand US dollars – from a woman in Hong Kong. Fortunately, she was not injured during the incident.
We believe that if you have relatively large amounts in cryptocurrency, it is best not to talk about it on every corner. And although virtual assets can be protected from hackers, their users themselves are often practically not protected from attacks, theft and constant threats of torture. Therefore, in this case, it is better to be excessively careful not to provoke the appearance of possible problems.
Alas, over time, cryptocurrencies will be of increasing interest to scammers and robbers. This will primarily contribute to the current stage of the industry’s growth. For example, Ethereum broke the $ 1,500 level for the first time the day before and flew up. His current record is $ 1,688. That is, during the year, the cryptocurrency brought its investors an incredible 766 percent return, and over the past month this figure was 60 percent.
For clarity, we present a graph of the cryptocurrency for the last year. It is important to note that in March 2020, against the background of the collapse of the markets, its rate fell below a hundred dollars.
