A Canadian police department has issued a public warning of a possible trend where high-value cryptocurrency investors are being robbed in their own homes.
On July 19, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Richmond, a city south of Vancouver, said several similar robberies involving cryptocurrency investors have occurred over the last 12 months.
Staff Sergeant Gene Hsieh of the Richmond RCMP Major Crime Unit said someone is “targeting these victims for cryptocurrency” and believed a public warning was necessary for public safety.
Richmond RCMP and Delta Police
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Police issue warning to high-value cryptocurrency investors following home-invasion style robberies.
— Delta Police Department (@deltapolice) July 19, 2023
The RCMP didn’t release specific details on the incidents but explained in each case the perpetrator impersonated a delivery driver before robbing the victim.
“The suspects gain access to a victim’s home by posing as delivery people or persons of authority. Once let inside the home, the suspects rob the victims of information that gives access to their cryptocurrency accounts.”
Staff Sergeant Jill Long of the Delta Police Investigative Services said the suspects appear to know that the victims are “heavily” invested in cryptocurrency along with knowledge of where they live.
The police department confirmed it made one arrest but has not confirmed whether several incidents are linked. It did not provide specific details about the incidents or how much cryptocurrency was stolen as the investigations are still ongoing.
To avoid a home robbery the department advised not letting strangers or delivery people — whether seemingly legitimate or not — into the household and instead ask them to leave deliveries outside.
If in doubt, a call should be made to the delivery company to confirm the person’s identity and authorities should be called if danger is or appears imminent.
Valuables and financial information should be kept somewhere safe within the household, such as a safety box, the police advised.
More generally the police recommend only discussing financial matters in private — not on social media — and only with trusted people.
In March, Canada’s self-proclaimed “Crypto King” — Aiden Pleterski — was allegedly kidnapped, falsely imprisoned and assaulted by five men who fell for an apparent cryptocurrency scheme from Pleterski.
One of the men, who reportedly invested 740,000 Canadian dollars ($560,000) into the scheme, was charged with kidnapping Pleterski on July 17, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Collect this article as an NFT to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.
Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali has resigned after reportedly hiking the rent on a property she owns by hundreds of pounds – something described by one of her tenants as “extortion”.
That was just weeks after the previous tenants’ contract ended, The i Paper said.
Four tenants who rented a house in east London from Ms Ali were sent an email last November saying their lease would not be renewed, and which also gave them four months’ notice to leave, the newspaper reported.
The property was then re-listed with a £700 rent increase within weeks, the publication added.
In a letter to the prime minister, Ms Ali said that remaining in her role would be a “distraction from the ambitious work of this government”.
She added: “Further to recent reporting, I wanted to make it clear that at all times I have followed all relevant legal requirements.
“I believe I took my responsibilities and duties seriously, and the facts demonstrate this.”
Laura Jackson, one of Ms Ali’s former tenants, said she and three others collectively paid £3,300 in rent.
Weeks after she and her fellow tenants had left, the self-employed restaurant owner said she saw the house re-listed with a rent of around £4,000.
“It’s an absolute joke,” she said. “Trying to get that much money from renters is extortion.”
Image: Sir Keir Starmer said Ms Ali’s work in government would leave a ‘lasting legacy’. Pic: PA
Ms Ali’s house, rented on a fixed-term contract, was put up for sale while the tenants were living there, and was only relisted as a rental because it had not sold, according to The i Paper.
The government’s Renters’ Rights Bill includes measures to ban landlords who end a tenancy to sell a property from re-listing it for six months.
The Bill, which is nearing its end stages of scrutiny in Parliament, will also abolish fixed-term tenancies and ensure landlords give four months’ notice if they want to sell their property.
Something Sir Keir’s increasingly unpopular government could have done without
Rushanara Ali’s swift and humiliating demise is a classic example of paying the price for the politician’s crime of “Do as I say, not as I do”.
She was Labour’s minister for homelessness, for goodness’ sake, yet she ejected tenants from her near-£1m town house then hiked the rent.
A more egregious case of ministerial double standards it would be difficult to imagine. She had to go and was no doubt told by 10 Downing Street to go quickly.
MP for the East End constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, Ms Ali was the very model of a modern Labour minister: a degree in PPE from Oxford University.
In her resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she said she is quitting “with a heavy heart”. Really? She presumably didn’t have a heavy heart when she ejected her four tenants.
She’d previously spoken out against “private renters being exploited” and said the government would “empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases”.
She was charging her four former tenants £3,300 a month. Yet after they moved out, she charged her new tenants £4,000, a rent increase of more than 20%.
In an area represented by the left-wing firebrand George Galloway from 2005 to 2010, Ms Ali had a majority of under 1,700 at the election last year.
Ominously for Labour, an independent candidate was second and the Greens third. No doubt Jeremy Corbyn’s new party will also stand next time.
In her resignation letter to the PM, Ms Ali said continuing in her ministerial role would be a distraction. Too right.
A distraction Sir Keir and his increasingly unpopular government could have done without.
Responding to her resignation, shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly said: “I said that her actions were total hypocrisy and that she should go if the accusations were shown to be true.”
A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: “Rushanara Ali fundamentally misunderstood her role. Her job was to tackle homelessness, not to increase it.”
Previously, a spokesperson for Ms Ali said the tenants “stayed for the entirety of their fixed term contract, and were informed they could stay beyond the expiration of the fixed term, while the property remained on the market, but this was not taken up, and they decided to leave the property”.
The prime minister thanked Ms Ali for her “diligent work” and for helping to “deliver this government’s ambitious agenda”.
Sir Keir Starmer said her work in putting in measures to repeal the Vagrancy Act would have a “significant impact”.
And he said she had been trying to encourage “more people to engage and participate in our democracy”, something that would leave a “lasting legacy”.
A more egregious case of ministerial double standards it would be difficult to imagine. She had to go and was no doubt told by 10 Downing Street to go quickly.
Image: Rushanara Ali reportedly hiked the rent on a property she owns. Pic: PA
‘A heavy heart’ – really?
MP for the East End constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney, Ms Ali was the very model of a modern Labour minister: A degree in PPE from Oxford University.
In her resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she said she is quitting “with a heavy heart”. Really? She presumably didn’t have a heavy heart when she ejected her four tenants.
She’d previously spoken out against “private renters being exploited” and said her government would “empower people to challenge unreasonable rent increases”.
The now former minister was charging her four former tenants £3,300 a month. Yet after they moved out, she charged her new tenants £4,000 – a rent increase of more than 20%.
Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Adriana Kugler announced her resignation on Aug. 1, paving the way for a Trump nominee at the US central bank.