- Suspects took between $300 and $600 in crypto to spread waste and faeces on victims’ doors.
- South Korean police are hunting suspected masterminds.
- Russian gangs reportedly pay teens crypto to carry out arson attacks.
Victims of perceived injustices are turning to crypto and chat apps like Telegram to commission made-to-order revenge attacks.
Police in South Korea say they’re investigating a string of arrests committed by individuals who say they were paid in crypto to vandalise residential properties and defame or threaten their owners.
“I will not leave you alone,” was the message reportedly written in bold on a leaflet stuffed into a letterbox by a suspect who told police in Gyeonggi Province he was paid between $300 and $600 to deliver the threat.
The suspect, officers say, has no idea who paid him to commit the crime — although police have vowed to find out.
The attacks come amid an increase in crypto-related crime in South Korea. Last month, prosecutors in Seoul indicted a man accused of poisoning his business partner’s coffee after embezzling company money to make a secret six-figure crypto investment.
Masterminds at large
The recent attacks follow a similar pattern, South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh reported.
The most recent of these was reported on March 1, when a branch of the Suwon District Court ordered the arrest of a man surnamed Lim, aged in his 20s, on property damage charges.
Police say Lim broke into an apartment complex in the city of Hwaseong at night on February 22. Officers say Lim graffitied the front door of the victim’s house with red paint, scattered food waste on the entrance, and smeared human faeces on a nearby stairwell.
Lim is also accused of scattering dozens of defamatory leaflets about the victim around the building.
Prosecutors in Anyang last month reported an attack in the city of Gunpo that also involved graffitiing a front door and the distribution of similarly worded leaflets.
A third case of this nature was reported in December, when police arrested three men in Pyeongtaek for “spraying contaminants” on a citizen’s front door and “distributing defamatory leaflets.”
All three suspects told police that they received payments in crypto from an unknown person who’d contacted them via Telegram.
‘Private revenge organisation’
Police believe a self-styled “private revenge organisation” is now active on Korean-language Telegram channels.
Crypto-powered revenge attacks are not a uniquely South Korean phenomenon.
In late 2024, the Russian newspaper Izvestia published evidence that networks of middlemen use the anonymity provided by crypto and Telegram to preside over an empire of customised revenge attacks.
The newspaper explained middlemen charge prospective customers $1,500 for arson attacks that target vehicles and non-residential properties. One of the middlemen said he advertised his services on Telegram open chat rooms and darkweb portals.
He explained that he paid teenagers $750 to carry out the attacks. All transactions are allegedly carried out exclusively in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.
