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CASE 178  |  3 y/o boy  |  July 3, 2024  |  Hong Kong
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DATABASE RECORD
  id                  178
  date                July 3, 2024
  original_date       July 3, 2024
  year                2024
  month               7
  quarter             2024-Q3
  victim              3 y/o boy
  location            Tseung Kwan, Hong Kong
  country             Hong Kong
  scenario            Kidnapping
  description         2 women abduct toddler from mall, demand $660,000 USDT ransom.
  kidnappings         1
  violence_torture    0
  drugs_alcohol       0
  weapons             0
  theft               0
  life_taken          0
  money_wanted        HK$5 million
  coin_type           crypto
  reports             DLnews
  notes               they abducted a 3 year old and demanded ransom. police rescued the unharmed child
  has_processed_date  1
  created_at          2025-11-13 05:44:45
  (flag legend: 'kidnappings' is the DETENTION flag — 1 when the victim was held against
   their will at any point, tied, locked in, held at gunpoint or taken away; it is NOT the
   same as the 'Kidnapping' scenario, which means taken away and held. See README, Definitions.)

AI SUMMARY  [generated at bulk import, NOT verified against sources]
  **Victim:** 3 y/o boy
  
  **Attackers:** Unknown number of perpetrators
  
  **Attack Method:** Kidnapping for ransom
  
  **Violence Used:** Threats/intimidation
  
  **Crypto Stolen:** HK$5 million in crypto
  
  **Status:** Investigation ongoing

LINKED SOURCES
  [url]  https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/abduction-of-hong-kong-child-marks-crimes-on-crypto-owners/

NOTES ON THIS FILE
  * matched to sheet row 179: exact match on victim + year, unique on both sides

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ARTICLE 1
  Source   DLnews
  URL      https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/abduction-of-hong-kong-child-marks-crimes-on-crypto-owners/
  Origin   reported_K&R sheet, row 179, column "Articles"
  Length   1,001 chars
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Hong Kong police arrest 2 women over allegedly abducting 3-year-old boy for HK$5 million crypto ransom


The boy was rescued by the police from a housing estate in Tseung Kwan O at 5.25 am on Thursday after being kidnapped from the nearby TKO Plaza shopping mall on Wednesday afternoon.
Hong Kong police have arrested two women over allegedly abducting a three-year-old boy from a shopping mall for a ransom of more than HK$5 million in cryptocurrency.
The boy was rescued by the police from a housing estate in Tseung Kwan O at 5.25 am on Thursday after being kidnapped from the nearby TKO Plaza shopping mall on Wednesday afternoon, according to local media reports.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Chief Superintendent Kwan King-pan of the police force’s Organised Crime and Triad Bureau said two 38-year-old women had been arrested, who told police they were unemployed. They were apprehended during a break-in to rescue the boy, who appeared unharmed and was sent to hospital for observation.


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FETCHED ARTICLE 1  [AUTO-TRIMMED — UNREVIEWED]
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  !! It may still carry passages about OTHER cases from a round-up article.
  !! The full page extract is kept in staging/ if a cut needs revisiting.
  Source     dlnews.com
  URL        https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/abduction-of-hong-kong-child-marks-crimes-on-crypto-owners/
  Field      url
  Retrieved  2026-09-05T12:50:37+00:00 via raw HTTP retrieval, deterministic extraction (HTTP 200)
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  Kept       paragraphs headline [0] + 4-28 of 36
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  Caveat     retrieved from a live page on the date above. Unlike text copied
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ORIGINAL (unknown, verbatim as retrieved)

Abduction of Hong Kong toddler marks crime wave targeting crypto owners - DL News

Violent criminals are increasingly invading residences to force crypto owners to give up assets.

It's not just Hong Kong — US case revealed a 'robbery crew' targeting crypto in homes.

Kidnapped boy was freed after two suspected kidnappers were arrested.

Last week, Hong Kong police authorities arrested two 38-year-old women from mainland China for allegedly abducting a three-year-old boy.

The two grabbed him from a shopping mall in the neighbourhood of Tseung Kwan O on July 3 before demanding a ransom to be paid in USDT of US$660,000, according to a report in the Hong Kong Free Press.

Kwan King-pan, the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau’s Chief Superintendent, told reporters police had raided the apartment where the boy was being held the next day. He was freed and appeared to be unharmed, media reports said.

The official reminded the public that police are able to trace cryptocurrency.

“Some criminals have mistakenly thought that cryptocurrencies are harder to trace, but I stress the force is capable and determined on bringing them to justice,” Kwan said.

The story marks the latest in a series of crypto-related attacks and kidnappings in the city and elsewhere.

At the end of March, a 19-year-old was lured to a hotel room in Hung Hom on the pretence of trading cryptocurrency, police said.

Upon arrival, he was accosted by a group of nine individuals who demanded he give them the HK$180,000 he had made in trading crypto.

Two of the group then proceeded to beat him with baseball bats.

A firm linked to Cambodia’s ruling family is running an $11b crypto scam operation

The Cambodian government says it wants to stop the rampant...The Cambodian government says it wants to stop the rampant surge in crypto romance scams and shut down the compounds in the...

Few other details have been released, but the case is again being handled by detectives who specialise in triad, or organised crime, cases.

And in May, a 55-year-old crypto investor in Sheung Shui was abducted by four men. The men stopped her car and attacked her husband with a stun gun before kidnapping her.

She was released by her captors about an hour later. The abduction was linked to a $1.9 million crypto investment dispute.

Similar crimes are occurring outside Hong Kong, too.

Last month, a court in the US convicted Remy St Felix, 24, for leading a “robbery crew” targeting cryptocurrency owners in violent home invasions across four states.

In April 2023, St Felix, of West Palm Beach, Florida, and an accomplice “assaulted, zip-tied, and held the victim at gunpoint, and threatened more violence against the victim and the victim’s spouse, while other co-conspirators transferred more than $150,000 in cryptocurrency from the victim’s account,” according to the US Department of Justice.

Similar crimes have taken place in the Philippines targeting Chinese businessmen who have been kidnapped and held for ransoms payable in crypto.

Two men, Xia Kefu an and Sun Jing, were kidnapped in the country last month. On June 21, their families received calls demanding US$2 million in USDT for their release.

They were both found dead near Manila on June 27.

Several attendees at EthCC in Brussels this week also shared on X that they had been the victim of assaults.

Callan Quinn, DL News’ Hong Kong correspondent, covers the crypto industry in Asia. Have a tip? Contact the author at callan@dlnews.com.

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generated from attacks-export-Gart-website.json + reported_K&R  |  case 178
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