In the latest in a string of violent crypto robberies, a four-person gang held a Canadian family hostage overnight and stole about $2 million CAD ($1.6 million USD) in Bitcoin. The attackers threatened to kill the family, waterboarded the mother and father, and sexually assaulted their daughter after invading their Vancouver-area home.
The crime occurred in April 2024, but the details of the scene were revealed last week in a sentencing report by a British Columbia judge, first reported by CBC. Tsz Wing Boaz Chan, a 35 year-old resident of Hong Kong, pleaded guilty to breaking and entering, unlawful confinement, and sexual assault. The court document did not reveal the identity of the family.
“After restraining the family, the men took their cell phones and laptop computers and demanded their PIN numbers and passwords,” wrote the judge. “They threatened to cut the family or kill them if their passwords and PIN numbers were not provided.”
The incident follows a trend of physical attacks on people who own Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. Earlier this year, David Balland, the co-founder of Paris-based crypto wallet firm Ledger, had his finger severed by kidnappers who demanded a ransom.
In 2024, there were 24 physical attacks against crypto owners. That number has jumped to more than 60 so far in 2025. That is according to a list compiled by Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin owner whose home was raided in 2017. Crypto transactions do not require the intervention of a bank for withdrawal, making investors a target for criminals seeking large sums of money.
In the British Columbia case, two men showed up to the family’s home during the evening of April 27, 2024. They were disguised in Canada Post uniforms and were wearing Covid masks. The daughter opened the door for them, and the intruders, later joined by two more men, entered the house and restrained the three members of the family. They held the family hostage until the next morning.
The father had boasted about his crypto earnings within the Chinese community, according to the report. The four intruders asked for 200 Bitcoins, equivalent to about $26 million. They then lowered their demand to 100 Bitcoins. By the following morning, the men withdrew about $1.6 million from the family’s crypto accounts. The father told the men that he had exaggerated the amount of his crypto earnings, and that he had lost money in a scam in 2018.
During the intrusion, the kidnappers punched, beat, and waterboarded the father of the family. They waterboarded, blindfolded, bounded, and gagged the mother. And the men sexually assaulted the daughter and filmed several videos of her naked. They threatened that the videos would be posted online if the family went to the police.
The morning after the attack, the daughter escaped from the house and went to a nearby friend’s house where she called the police. All three members of the family were taken to the hospital to be examined for injuries.
Chan was arrested upon returning to Canada three months later and was sentenced to seven years in jail.
