Shenzhen Employee Sentenced for $87K Bitcoin Extortion

An employee at a Shenzhen technology company has been sentenced to three years and three months in prison for attempting to extort his employer using Bitcoin.

The employee, identified as Jia, stole proprietary R&D data and sent ransom demands via email, posing as a foreign hacker. He demanded 0.88 BTC, an additional 0.8 BTC, and 90,000 USDT, valued at over 630,000 RMB ($87,000 to $88,000).

The company refused to pay the ransom and instead reported the incident to the police, who were able to track down Jia and arrest him.

The court found that Jia had accumulated significant debts from online lending platforms and decided to monetize his employer's intellectual property. The ruling also recognized Bitcoin and USDT as virtual assets possessing property value, a crucial distinction in China where cryptocurrency trading has been effectively banned since 2021.

The case highlights the importance of treating digital assets as property, even in jurisdictions that have tried to squeeze crypto out of their financial systems.