Bomb Threats Demanding Bitcoin Force Evacuations Across Russia

Someone has been sending bomb threats across Russia, demanding $870,000 worth of bitcoin supposedly stolen from the defunct cryptocurrency exchange WEX.

For almost a month, anonymous blackmailers have been threatening to blow up courts, schools, shopping malls, transportation hubs and a television station unless someone sends “120 bitcoin stolen from the WEX exchange” to their address. 

No one was hurt, nor were any bombs detonated, but 750,000 people have had to evacuate buildings since the threats started on Nov. 28, Russian news agency Interfax reports. Court buildings in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were the first to receive threats.

So far only a negligible amount of bitcoin, about $0.48 worth, has been sent to the address, in a single transaction on Dec. 9.

The anonymous actors are blaming Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and a former officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Anton Nemkin, for the alleged theft of bitcoin, citing a report by the BBC