A 23-year-old Ukrainian crypto holder, Viacheslav Leibov, was robbed at gunpoint in Phuket, Thailand, losing 250,000 USDT. The attackers, who included Alfred Chernyshuk and Arman Grigoryan among others, tied Leibov up and demanded a ransom. After negotiating, he transferred the reduced sum to their specified wallet.
After freeing himself, Leibov reported the incident to the police. Physical assaults targeting individuals with cryptocurrency holdings are becoming increasingly common in Thailand. Earlier this year, five Russian men were sentenced to two years in prison for kidnapping a Belarusian couple and forcing them to transfer 31 million baht worth of cryptocurrency.
Another incident saw a Russian man arrested on Samui Island for allegedly robbing another Russian of Bitcoin worth around 1.8 million baht. In a separate incident in July, five foreigners were detained for violently robbing a British crypto trader in Bangkok. More recently, four Chinese nationals allegedly forced their way into a luxury residence in Pathum Thani, where they coerced the victim to transfer $2 million in cryptocurrency.
