Verona Man Gets Strange Letter Demanding Bitcoin Blackmail: Cops

VERONA, NJ — They wanted Bitcoins. And they wanted them bad, Verona police say.

Earlier this week, the Verona Police Department released a statement about what must be one of the strangest blackmail requests ever made in the township. According to police, a Linden Avenue resident told police on Nov. 21 that he received a letter from someone in Nashville, Tennessee demanding that he send them $2,500 worth of Bitcoins, a digital cryptocurrency that recently traded above the price of gold. In return, the letter-sender promised to stay quiet about an “affair” that the resident was having.

The would-be-victim managed to avoid the scam with a simple Google check, which revealed that the letter was bogus, police said.

• See related article: Bitcoins More Valuable Than Gold: Digital Currency Makes History

Demanding a blackmail payment via Bitcoin may seem unusual, but instances of cryptocurrency-fueled scams are on the rise, authorities say.

A Connecticut resident was recently the victim of a Bitcoin blackmail scheme in which they received a threatening letter and were told to make payment in the digital currency or suffer the exposure of a "secret.” According to the department, the unnamed victim received a letter in the mail that specifically stated, "I know about the secret you are keeping from your wife. More importantly, I have evidence of what you are hiding."

• See related article: Bitcoin Blackmail Scheme Hits Darien Resident

The same scheme was also reported in Michigan, where authorities also found a Nashville, Tennessee postmark on the letters.

• See related article: Bitcoin Extortion; Man Told To Pay Or His 'Secret' Gets Revealed

In November, authorities accused a member of an Iran-based hacking group of trying to extort HBO out of $6 million in Bitcoins by stealing unreleased episodes and scripts of hit shows including "Game of Thrones.”

• See related article: HBO Hacker Tried To Extort $6M In Bitcoin, Prosecutors Say

Earlier that month, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who was previously sentenced to nearly six years in prison for corruption during a probe of the Silk Road online black market has been sentenced in federal court to another two years for pilfering Bitcoins seized during an investigation.

• See related article: Bitcoin Plea By Former Secret Service Agent

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Photo: Flickr / Steve Garfield

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