A global kidnapping case that began in Chicago’s tony Lincoln Park neighborhood and spiderwebbed through the suburbs to California, Mexico and finally Beijing, is the latest example of a surge in digital strongarm thefts.
For the past year, NBC Chicago’s investigative team has been unpeeling cases that could be described as “Grand Theft: Crypto,” kidnappings for ransom paid in digital currency, many times featuring Chinese organized crime groups.
When a band of Chinese nationals showed up at a home in Lincoln Park, they weren’t selling something. They were there to take it, grabbing a whole family, including an infant and the babysitter, for ransom totaling $15 million in crypto currency.
The hit squad was comprised of six men, decked out in tactical black, some wearing ballcaps and masks and using getaway vans with fully tinted windows. They arrived in Chicago with an intended target in Lincoln Park, according to federal agents: a Chinese family with money that they had identified through a friend of a friend.
On Oct. 27, 2024, they abducted one man as he got out of the shower, snatched his wife and their infant child along with the family nanny. All were forced at gunpoint to Air B & B’s in the suburbs, with the kidnappers restraining the group with zipties until $15 million in cryptocurrency ransom was transferred.
After five days in captivity, the kidnappers had their money and they released the family, physically unharmed.
Since then, the six men have been identified by the FBI and named in federal charges filed in Chicago.
Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Building, one of them, Zehuan Wei, agreed to plead guilty.
“My client didn’t have an evil heart,” said Wei’s attorney Alez Kessel.
Wei’s attorney told the NBC Chicago investigative team that in the plea agreement, the 34 year old rideshare driver admits he was recruited to chauffeur the kidnappers from California to Chicago and then to Mexico.
Four of them, apparent Chinese nationals, flew from Mexico to Beijing, according to Wei’s plea deal, “in order to avoid apprehension, trial and punishment for the kidnapping.”
“They have been arrested by Chinese authorities and possibly may be prosecuted by Chinese authorities,” Kessel said.
A sixth person charged, Ye Cao, is also planning to plead guilty according to Chicago court records, ith a hearing now set for next Thursday.
But what about the $15 million ransom that was paid?
“Approximately $4 million of the transferred cryptocurrency that the perpetrators caused to be transferred was recovered. But the lion’s share of the loss has not been recovered,” prosecutors said.
The irreversible make-up of these blockchain financial transactions is what attracts criminals in the first place, and what makes people with digital wealth increasingly vulnerable. The numbers and the crypto currency losses are surging right now according to data trackers and so are cases of what’s known as “wrench attacks.”
That term is taken from a web comic that refers to torturing victims with a simple tool such as a wrench to get what you want.
As for that Lincoln Park family that was kidnapped, they have not been identified by federal authorities.
