Losing your Bitcoin is a horrible feeling and it often drives people to go to extreme lengths to get it back – especially when it’s a significant amount. A teen from India has taken things to a whole new level in an effort to recover his stolen Bitcoin. The teen was approached by a stranger on the internet who promised to help him make more money – a huge red flag right there – so he transferred the mystery man all of his Bitcoin. Surprise, surprise, the mysterious individual vanished along with the teen’s Bitcoin.
A Weird Turn of Events
The teen promptly reported the crime to the FBI and was hoping for a swift response and probably his Bitcoin back. However, investigations take time and the FBI aren’t just sat around twiddling their thumbs waiting for calls. When the FBI failed to deliver any results in the teen’s idealistic time frame, he decided to crank things up a notch. Rather than making a call asking how the progress of his case was coming along, he decided to threaten to blow up Miami airport. While the teen simply wanted to get the FBI’s attention, they ignored him and his threats – the FBI receives hundreds of hoax calls like this every day and knows a hoax when it sees one.
Making Over 50 Threatening Calls
You would think that after escaping placing a hoax call like that and getting away with it, the teen would have called it a day – but oh no. The teenager placed over 50 calls to the FBI, and in one call he got very specific. He said he was going to bring AK-47s, grenades, and suicide belts to blow up the airport – this got the FBI’s attention. In response, the FBI quickly traced the calls and emails back to the teen’s IP and linked it with the report of the missing Bitcoin. The FBI gave the teenager a warning not to ever make threats like that again, otherwise he would be placed on a terrorist watch list and be on every no-fly list around the globe. The teen might have been better kidnapping someone and ransoming them for Bitcoin like South African gangsters.
The teen had just over $1,000 worth of Bitcoin stolen by the scammer, but what’s more worrying is the FBI’s reaction to the threats. Rather than arresting the teen for making these types of claims, they simply gave him a slap on the wrist. As an added insult to injury, the FBI was already investigating the teen’s report and were close to delivering a verdict. Moral of the story – if your Bitcoin is stolen – or you make a stupid move and transfer it to a scammer – then you report it to the FBI, don’t threaten to blow up an airport.
