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CEO of a (different) Canadian crypto company here.
Two things are simultaneously true in Canada right now: 1) the government has become unwilling/unable to actually keep repeat violent offenders in jail (and has totally failed to prevent them from acquiring illegal firearms), and 2) the law essentially outlaws the use of any tools (firearms, pepper spray, knives) for the express purpose of self-defense.
It's functionally impossible to get a concealed carry permit in Canada. They just don't issue them, even if you have a restricted firearms license, even if you're a high-profile individual, and even if there's an immediate threat to your life. You have to rely on police and, if you can afford them, expensive private security who probably can't carry a firearm either. I should note that the kidnappers in this case (plural) were all armed.
The politicians, of course, are protected by the armed Parliamentary Protective Service. They just don't believe you deserve similar protection.
Huh, violent crime in general is up [1].
[1] https://thehub.ca/2024/09/21/violent-crime-has-seen-the-most...
The article claims violent crime is up 30% over the last decade. An important note the article only mentions in the subtitle is that this is recorded crime.
So recording might have gotten better/loose or the methodology is super stable and violent crime exactly as it was defined 10 years ago is up.
This seems unlikely, but plausible.
From the article though:
“The top violent crimes in 2023 were assault not using weapons or resulting harm, uttering threats, and assault employing weapons or resulting in harm.”
To me the recording of “uttering threats” pops out as something that would easily change depending on society’s sensitivities.
I am not saying violent crime isn’t up. These are just some thoughts that I wish were addressed in the article. The article doesn’t go into any of the recording methods and possible changes in what is categorised as a certain type of crime that could also impact the stats.
Sounds like Seattle, the police cannot chase criminals who steal cars, use them to brake into businesses and then drive off with the ATM in the back. The last is so left there that they are not allowed to chase them.
On top of the homeless craziness everywhere.
this is some weird conservative talking point and isn't true. here's a news article showing SPD chasing a stolen car just months ago:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/police-chase-truck-down-i-5...
I'm sure there are more recent examples too
the event you're likely referring to is a cop that pursued without authorization and was reprimanded. this is a good thing, cops should get permission before going on a wild car chase
Your Argument is: if more good people had guns this wouldn't have happened?
This is such an American take.
> The politicians, of course, are protected by the armed Parliamentary Protective Service. They just don't believe you deserve similar protection.
What are you talking about. A gun is not at all even close to anything regarding trained professional lifeguards. Wtf?
You Imagine you alone with a AR-15 vs 5 terrorists with AK's and you win, right?
Your logic is very flawed. I bet you I know how the robbers got the guns. From their fucking neighbors selling them at Walmart, legally.
More accidents and bad things happen with guns, by a ton, than your imaginary hero self-defense stories.
Like another commenter has replied, not only are you factually incorrect, you are incorrect on a moral level, because your argument is that if the statistics show that more bad things happen with guns acquired legally, then that somehow trumps an individual's right to self-defense.
It does not and I hope you never get into a situation where you have to experience that choice for yourself.
That is factually incorrect.
It is 1. A deterrent and 2. Accidents are just a result of poor training and 3. The amount of defensive gun use is exceptional, it does not get reported on purpose due to state propaganda in Canada, America, and so on.
Also all concealed carry holders regularly train, much of it is for fun, and their skills rival or surpass law enforcement.
This is starting to look like a recurring theme. A similar incident happened this summer in Estonia [0], kidnappers from abroad travelled to Tallinn for the express purpose of kidnapping the owner of a crypto casino who resides there. Like it or not, information about wealth is starting to look like a serious safety concern, especially in crypto where retrieving the funds later is practically impossible.
[0] https://news.err.ee/1609499827/attempted-abduction-of-austra...
It sounds more like being involved in crypto than being publicly wealthy is a security concern. Which is unsurprising.
It's almost like the crypto markets attract criminals!
> It sounds more like being involved in crypto than being publicly wealthy is a security concern. Which is unsurprising.
In Munich we have a serious problem with watch-robbers snatching people's expensive watches while driving on a motorcycle. Utterly insane but also utterly profitable if you have channels where to sell stolen watches.
The same argument could be made for physical cash
> It sounds more like being involved in crypto than being publicly wealthy
Maybe for now. The cryptocurrenty ricb are lower hanging fruit for sure, but crypto also make other kinds of kidnapping easier so I doubt it will remain soley in that realm.
"Be your own bank." Sure, then hire your own security guards.
Similar thing almost happened in a small town I used to live in. A local teen had accumulated a bunch of crypto, probably bragged about it somewhere online, and there was a group of half a dozen or so teens from another state who traveled to our town with plans to kidnap the local teen and force him to give them his crypto. Someone tipped off the local sheriff, who intercepted and arrested the out of state teens before they could actually kidnap the local teen.
Not long ago the father of Luis Diaz, a famous Colombian soccer player that plays for Liverpool was kidnapped for ransom money by a armed group in Colombia, the official declaration is that he was returned without paying the ransom -but people highly doubt that to be true-, anyone whose wealth is public knowledge is at risk, specially in countries with organized crime. As you may guess his father and other close relatives no longer reside in Colombia.
I've said this explicitly for years... in this forum... everyone is going to love crypto until the kidnappings start. Anonymous transfers of large sums of money are rarely beneficial except in societies where crypto is already illegal.
Starting to?
> He says Skurka's abduction is the 171st instance of suspects using physical violence to steal bitcoins, that he's aware of.
Hedge funder Eddie Lampert was kidnapped 20 years ago. This kind of thing has always existed.
Great idea to have your bank balance on a ledger that's publicly available. Another home run from the crypto lads.
Any form of (extraordinary) wealth sooner or later will attract fearless men, who want to make it big and quickly.
Cortes for example when he found out where the empire's gold was hidden he kidnapped Montezuma. Pretty blatant criminal activity. In no history books is mentioned any kind of wrong doing by the gold side. Gold doesn't do stuff it is an inanimate object, only humans with agency can perform actions, and be guilty of them or innocent.
Victims of kidnapping for BTC, they can only hope BTC's price go to zero, long before 2030. By 2030 it's price will be 0 for sure, the economics of the blockchain ensure that, but they could be lucky and BTC's price crashes and zero's out the next 3 months or so. They will not be wealthy any more, the kidnappers will lose interest in them and throw them out in landfill somewhere, hopefully alive.
Ah the good old $5 wrench crypto attack vector strikes again
Great thread on what it takes to do crypto in Russia :
"In contrast, Russian cryptobros that I know tend to act very, very lowkey. The fewer people know about your activities, the better. Posting about dealing with crypto in social media is absolutely unthinkable. Why? Because that makes you too easy and lucrative prey"
https://x.com/kamilkazani/status/1579145927373508609?lang=en...
The new story he discusses is quite dark: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-unregistered.... Worth a read.
Some of his points sound reasonable to me.
> 2. [Non-violent entrepreneurs] are an abnormality. They create prosperity, yes, but they may flourish only in the artificial environment where the high-end violent entrepreneurs are being (constantly!) wiped out. They're the hothouse flowers, to put it simply
> 3. Much of the outer world is destitute because of violent entrepreneurs. Violent entrepreneurs are not wiped out -> they wipe out the non-violent ones -> the country cannot create stuff -> It is destitute
> 7. Non-violent entrepreneurs have prospered under artificially secure conditions and having (unknowingly) outsourced their security. If they don't understand it, you'd be much better off ignoring their advice when it comes to security and foreign policy.
It just takes a hammer to crack your wallet code
(First, I hope that the victim is OK, and will recover quickly from trauma.)
Would the kidnapping have been less likely to happen at all, if the random had to be paid in physical currency (e.g., paper bills, gold)?
Of course it would be less likely to happen with physical currency, you risk being caught when retrieving the money.
He paid, when the bad guy runs out of money, he knows how to get more
He’s alive and can get better security. Maybe it makes the problem worse for others, but this is a no brainer decision when your safety is on the line.
If I were that guy, I'd go all in on FBTC or some ETF. Keeping a stash of distilled gold in your house is a huge liability.
I feel like there’s insurance for this kind of thing
Why wouldn't you do this? If you know somebody's got a lot of bitcoin, you know everything is going to go perfectly.
You could do a kidnapping like this in a couple hours and make your dinner date. If the victim doesn't wise up and get bodyguards or get out of bitcoin, you could kidnap them two or three times.
If they are using multi-signature or some other setup you may need to kidnap a lot of people. So it does not necessarily require increasing physical security.
I hope he didn't kidnap himself.
I don't want to speculate but I wouldn't be surprised if he planned it all along to run away with customer's money. Not unheard of in the crypto world. Hope he makes it home safe.
I assume that spending corporate funds (or worse, customer deposits) to ransom an employee would still fall under embezzlement.
Much like if the same money was used for medical procedures that aren't covered by the health-plan.
My first thought on seeing the article title was, "wow that's a pretty expensive wrench"
"Oh, so now you want a centralized trusted authority to 'meddle' in monetary transactions..."
It's nothing to do with money, everything to do with violence, that the state expressly allows by prohibiting self defense.
Did they pay the ransom or not?
Read the article?
> He was released after a ransom of $1 million was paid electronically, a source close to the investigation said.