A 23-year-old Ukrainian man, Vyacheslav Leibov, was robbed in Phuket, a popular tourist island in Thailand. It happened during his visit to a friend on Friday, November 8. The victim transferred USDT stablecoins worth more than 8.56 million baht (about $249 thousand) to the criminals.
According to the victim, the incident occurred when he came to his 18-year-old friend Alfred Chernyshuk’s house around 10:45 pm. At the entrance, he was met by his friend’s acquaintance, 21-year-old Armenian citizen Arman Grigoryan, who escorted Leibov to the room.
At first, Leibov talked with other guests on the balcony. Then, when he went to the bathroom, two men with their faces covered were waiting for him. They tied the victim’s hands and feet with ropes and plastic clamps. Then Arman, with a hammer in his hand, began threatening to break the victim’s fingers, demanding that he transfer 500,000 Tether USDT in cryptocurrency. The other robber hid his face and held a long knife.
According to Leibov, he managed to persuade the attackers to reduce the ransom amount. After the transfer of 8.56 million baht (about $249 thousand), the attackers tied him to the bed, warned him not to go to the police, took his belongings and fled.
Later, Leibov managed to free himself. He went to the hotel reception and found out that the room was rented by Armand and Alfred. He then went to Phuket Airport on his motorcycle, but did not see any of the suspects there, so he went to the police.
On November 11, police found and arrested four foreigners on suspicion of robbing Leibov. The police identified them as 21-year-old Armenian citizen Arman Grigoryan, Ukrainians Alfred Chernyshuk (19) and Ruslan Musalev (22), and 21-year-old Russian Miraz Atoyan. The suspects were detained at night at the Palm Inn hotel in the Takua Pa district.
Interestingly, the owner of the hotel told local TV channel One 31 that he saw Leibov being tied up, but thought it was a YouTube video, as he did not hear any sounds of struggle.
According to the police, one of the suspects regularly bought USDT stablecoins from Leibov and knew that he had a significant amount of crypto assets.
Source: The Nation, Bangkok Post