An armed robbery in a Stockholm suburb could have been linked to the Ledger hack
“Millions” were stolen in bitcoin in an armed home invasion in a region that had multiple addresses leaked
There have been no arrests and no direct link can be incontrovertibly made
Armed robbers stole “millions” in Bitcoin from a Swedish couple last week in a crime that could have been brought about by last year’s Ledger hack. Last week, three robbers gained entry into the victims’ apartment in a suburb of Stockholm where they forced them at gunpoint to transfer their bitcoin holdings before escaping, and there are suggestions that the perpetrators used information from the Ledger hack to identify and locate the owners.
Little Chance of Random Attack
December’s Ledger hack, which saw the names, addresses, and phone numbers of almost 300,000 Ledger customers released for free on the internet, has resulted in a swathe of scam emails and phone calls to victims. However, the most terrifying prospect that the Ledger leak brought about was the potential for a home visit by an armed invader.
After seven weeks of waiting it seems that this may have finally occurred, with Stockholm-based newspaper Aftonbladet reporting last week that a couple had opened their door to find three men threatening them with a “pistol-like object”. Once inside, the men forced the holders to send over “millions” in Bitcoin before escaping, with police concluding that there was little chance of the attack being random.
CasaHODL founder Jameson Lopp reported that there are 14 addresses in that particular suburb of Stockholm within the Ledger hack database, suggesting that they were deliberately targeted from information gained from the leaked material:
There are 14 addresses in this Stockholm suburb on the Ledger leak list. At least 4 of those individuals have public social media posts about owning crypto that are easy to find. We probably won’t know for a long time if the victim of this latest armed robbery was on the list.
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) February 12, 2021
Ledger Hack Robberies Inevitable
It must be said that while the couple were almost certainly targeted for their crypto holdings, there is nothing linking the crime directly to the Ledger hack. There could have been other ways in which the bitcoin owners were known to the criminals, and the Ledger team will be desperately hoping that if any arrests are made in the matter that no evidence linking the Ledger hack to the crime emerges.
Even if this case turns out to be unrelated to the Ledger hack, it can surely only be a matter of time before such an event takes place which is incontrovertibly linked to the data leak, at which point Ledger’s very survival will be in question.
