Key Takeaways
- Since Monday, Bulgarian Crypto Trader and Entrepreneur Alexander Altunbashev has been missing. Bulgarian Police are investigating the disappearance.
- His kidnapping is being investigated by law enforcement, and others in the surrounding crypto community assume he’s hiding from irate investors.
Police in Bulgaria are looking for a businessman who went missing earlier today under odd circumstances. Alexander Altunbashev, 32, is an IT professional and business owner who made money from cryptocurrency trading.
Investigators in Sofia believe his possible kidnapping is the chief factor for his tragedy. As per sources from the investigation, Alexander’s sister, Teodora, spoke with him before he left for Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city.
Teodora drove him to Sofia’s Mladost district on Monday morning. Later that day, she noticed a man trying to unlock and enter her brother’s house, which was practically next door to her own. When she asked who he was and what he was doing, he said he was “in a hurry” and got into an SUV driven by a woman.
Alexander’s apartment was discovered upturned by investigators. They believe the perpetrator was attempting to gain access to his bank accounts or cryptocurrency wallets. Alexander told Teodora that he was on his way to Burgas, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, the last time she spoke with him on the phone.
Teodora is convinced to call the police because of Alexander’s strange behaviour and his repeated attempts to contact him when his phone is turned off. Investigators also interrogated the crypto trader’s girlfriend, Christina, who said she was unaware of any threats or problems with his business relationship.
In light of this situation, Twitter user @BlewyCom suggests that as a cryptocurrency investor or trader, it is a good idea to have many wallets so that huge quantities of cryptocurrencies are not held in a single wallet or exchange. The blockchain ledger is intended to record and trace all transactions.
It’s not the first time that people get to hear incidents of Bitcoin-related kidnappings; in April, Chinese authorities arrested four people on suspicion of kidnapping one person and asking for “hundreds of bitcoins” as a ransom payment. While the claimed kidnapping is said to have happened in the Philippines, the two countries’ collaboration finally led to the Chinese kidnappers’ capture and subsequent punishment.
Altunbashev Could Be Withholding Information From Clients, Crypto Community Suspects:
The cellphone of the missing IT expert was last used outside of Sofia. Ivello Borisov, a good friend of Alexander and a guy with a criminal background known as ‘Torino,’ was the last person to speak with him. The two were expected to meet at midday on Monday, but the cryptocurrency trader failed to appear. Borisov is assisting law enforcement officers.
Meanwhile, there is speculation in the country’s crypto community that Alexander Altunbashev may have decided to go into hiding because he was likely investing the funds to compensate for lost customers.
Governments and corporations own nearly 8% of all Bitcoin in the world, approximately 1.6 million Bitcoin (BTC) worth $45.8 billion, with Bulgaria being the largest holder of the top cryptocurrency. Several countries own a total of 271,417 BTC worth $7.97 billion.
Bulgaria has the largest share of these coins, with 213,519 Bitcoin valued at $6.27 billion.
There is no explicit Bitcoin legislation in Bulgaria. Bulgarian authorities do not recognise Bitcoin as legal cash and do not regulate it. Bulgaria imposes a 10% Bitcoin tax on all profits made with the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin mining in Bulgaria is similarly unregulated. Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, are not well received by Bulgarian banks and regulators. Bulgarian banks barred Bitcoin exchange accounts registered in the nation in late 2017, while Bulgarian law enforcement seized over 213,000 Bitcoin in a series of raids in May 2017.
