A B.C. cryptocurrency investor known for his online boasts was robbed of $2 million in bitcoin after his family was held hostage overnight and subjected to waterboarding, sexual assault and death threats from masked intruders they knew only as “One,” “Two,” “Three” and “Four.”
The details of the terrifying attack — which was only cut short after the man’s daughter escaped — were detailed this week by a B.C. Provincial court judge who sentenced one of the gang members to seven years in jail.
Tsz Wing Boaz Chan — a 35-year-old who flew in from Hong Kong in early 2024 to take part in the elaborately planned crime — pleaded guilty to break and enter, unlawful confinement and sexual assault.
Judge Robin McQuillan said Chan and three others held the family at gunpoint, beating and threatening the man while forcing his daughter to strip naked in a video next to her open passport — threatening to post it to social media if they went to the police.
A man with a disguised voice at the end of a phone demanded 200 bitcoin — worth around $26 million. But the gang only managed to access around $2 million from accounts belonging to the man and his wife.
“Within the Chinese community in B.C., [the investor] has boasted and exaggerated about his success with cryptocurrency investments,” McQuillan wrote.
“[He] explained to the man on the phone that he had exaggerated his success and that he had lost his cryptocurrency in 2018 in a scam.”
The attack is part of a wave of incidents that have terrified cryptocurrency investors around the globe as the staggering increase in the value of bitcoin has made them targets for what have become known as “wrench attacks.”
In a recent article about self-defence forums for cryptocurrency traders, the New York Times claimed investors and their families “have been targeted by assailants more than 60 times” in the past year.
High profile cases have included the kidnapping and waterboarding of self-proclaimed “Crypto King” Aiden Pleterski in Ontario in 2022 and a gruesome assault in January that saw attackers collect ransom after cutting off the finger of the founder of a French crypto hardware firm.
The New York Times report described the mechanics of crypto as “an appealing target.”
“Unlike bank transfers, crypto transactions don’t require the authorization of a financial institution,” the report says.
“They are instantaneous and irreversible.”
Chan was sentenced in Port Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. But the location of the family’s home, along with their names, ages and any other identifying details have been redacted from McQuillan’s decision.
According to the decision, Chan — an out-of-work sailor who was having a hard time making ends meet as a waiter — was recruited in early 2024 by an acquaintance who proposed an opportunity that “involved going into someone’s house in Canada, beating someone up, and then leaving.”
“At first, he thought the acquaintance was joking, but a few days later, the person followed up with Mr. Chan, asking him if he was interested,” McQuillan wrote.
“He was offered what was the equivalent of six months of his family mortgage payments.”
For three weeks before the attack, Chan and the other men lived in a house where they wore masks “and he understood that they were not to speak to one another.”
“A week before the offence, Mr. Chan was told to call someone. He was then instructed to phone that person daily,” the judgement says.
“During those calls, he was told what his tasks were to be.”
After the attack, police found three surveillance cameras planted outside the house, along with a power source hidden in the nearby bushes.
The hostage taking began just after 6:30 p.m. on April 28, 2024, with a knock on the door, answered by the bitcoin investor’s wife.
“When she opened the door, she was met by two Asian males dressed in Canada Post uniforms and wearing Covid facemasks,” McQuillan wrote.
“One man carried a box and the other carried a signature pad.”
But the uniforms were a ruse. As the investor’s wife went upstairs to find him, the two men entered the house, followed by two more. They closed the door behind them. They restrained the man, his wife and his daughter.
“The men all wore either blue medical gloves or dark-coloured gloves and masks. They spoke in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and referred to each other by a number, from one to four,” the judge wrote.
“The men took their cell phones and lap top computers and demanded their PIN numbers and passwords. They threatened to cut the family or kill them if their passwords and PIN numbers were not provided.”
In the hours that followed, the investor and his daughter both spoke by phone to a disembodied, disguised voice. The daughter was told to fake being punched, and fake being sexually assaulted so that her father could hear her in a nearby room.
The man was waterboarded, stripped and repeatedly beaten. He gave the attackers access to his cryptocurrency accounts, but “they told him it was not enough, as they wanted 200 bitcoins.”
The hostage takers later lowered the demand to 100 bitcoins, but ultimately withdrew about $2 million worth of bitcoin , “which effectively drained their accounts.”
The family’s ordeal ended around 8 a.m the following morning when the daughter escaped out a back door, ran to a neighbour’s house and called 911.
But by the time police arrived, the hostage takers were nowhere to be found.
In the weeks after the attack, police linked Chan to the attack through DNA and CCTV footage tying him to a rental vehicle seen casing the house prior to the attack. But by the time he was identified, he had already flown back to Hong Kong on May 1, 2024.
Nearly three months later, Chan returned to Canada, for unspecified reasons. He was arrested on arrival.
In victim impact statements, the investor and his daughter said their sense of “security has been shattered.”
The girl said she limits the time she spends at her home because “what was once a place of comfort has become a place of distress for her.”
The man said he is only too aware of how his family has suffered.
“It was elaborately planned, which included a thorough knowledge of their names, family structure, cryptocurrency holdings, their children’s schedules and property locations,” the judge wrote.
“The taking of nude videos of his daughter will be a lifelong scar for all of them, with the perpetual fear that they could be distributed.”
The investor claimed the loss of his bitcoin has been financially devastating.
“This money represented decades of hard work, which he intended to use to pay off their mortgages, maintain his business, care for their aging parents and leave a legacy for their children,” McQuillan wrote.
“Now they carry three mortgages for which they struggle to make minimum payments.”
Chan claimed he ultimately received about $50,000 for his role in the heist — money he has been ordered to pay back to the target of his crime.
He has been beaten in prison by other inmates, and he struggles with back pain and a lack of English skills. The judge said Chan was visibly distraught during sentencing. Given credit for time he has already served, he’ll spend five more years in custody.
