The FBI has issued a warning about an online scam that threatens people with death if they don't hand over their Bitcoin. The staff also published one of the letters that was sent to a Bitcoin investor. The letter demanded $2,800 in Bitcoin and said: "I'll be brief. I have been ordered to kill you."
The victim, who did not want to be identified, said she knew the email was a hoax but was still very concerned about it. She says: “I knew no one was following me, but when I went to work, I kept looking around to make sure there weren’t cars or suspicious people following me.”
FBI Agent Laura Eimiller reported that this is a new method of extortion. The FBI's investigative division believes the letters are carefully crafted to work even on trained professionals. Agent Eimiller added: "On average, the Internet Crime Complaint Center site in the US receives 800 complaints a day. We believe that this is only 15% of all the scams that occur, so this is a huge number. And even if just one percent of people send them money, that is a goldmine for scammers. Not only are criminals hiding from law enforcement by using the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, they are also profiting from the rise in their prices."
Internet criminals prefer additional privacy features that are not available to Bitcoin but are available from its competitors. According to Chainalysis, the amount of Bitcoin used on the dark web has fallen from 30% to 1%.
According to https://www.express.co.uk
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