Hangzhou has cracked a cryptocurrency extortion case targeting enterprises, involving over 300000 yuan

BlockBeats news, on May 19th, according to Xinhua News Agency, the Shangcheng District People's Court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang recently sentenced a special extortion case in the first instance. An engineer who was originally engaged in network security work used a Trojan virus to "hack" the enterprise network system and demanded cryptocurrency as "ransom". At the end of 2023, the head of the technical department of a medical institution in Hangzhou received calls from various departments, reporting that the system could not be logged in normally. After verification, a total of 89 servers in the company were unable to operate, and the business was completely paralyzed. According to statistics, a total of three victimized companies spent over 330000 yuan to purchase cryptocurrency from a third party and pay the other party in order to resume normal operations. After arriving at the case, the suspect admitted the criminal fact of extortion by using Trojan virus. On September 11, 2024, the People's Procuratorate of Shangcheng District prosecuted Qi and four others for extortion and infringement of citizens' personal information in accordance with the law. In March 2025, the case will be heard in Shangcheng District People's Court. Recently, four defendants were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from three years to seven years and six months in the first instance, and fined. The verdict has now come into effect.