Armed Bitcoin Robberies Surge In Sweden Due to Open Data on Citizens
"Sweden is probably one of the least safe countries to be active in the cryptocurrency sector in at the moment. I've personally left Sweden and I don't expect to return until the laws around personal privacy change," said Eric Wall.
- "This Monday, a middle-aged Swedish couple was tied up in their home and robbed by four masked men. They were physically abused and threatened with their own kitchen knives. They were tied up for hours and one had to be escorted to the hospital via helicopter," reported Eric Wall on X.
- "The purpose of the assault was to steal the couple's bitcoin. Unfortunately, this is not a new occurrence in Sweden now. Only last month, two well-known bitcoin/crypto profiles were targeted in their homes by masked, armed men."
- "The first time this happened was last year, one of Sweden's most well-known bitcoiners had criminals break into their apartment."
- "What appears to be common for each of these cases is that the victims had livestreamed a podcast about bitcoin/crypto days before their assault, or mentioned bitcoin in a public context."
"This situation is occurring because in Sweden, you can easily search for any person's residential address and drive straight to their house. If you're curious, you can also search for their tax records, and find out exactly how much they paid in income or capital gains tax, and size them up from that."
- ""The Principle of Public Access to Information", known in Swedish as "Offentlighetsprincipen" (the law that makes residential addresses and tax records public) is the main culprit behind this strangeness relative to other countries. While the intentions behind this legislation was to reduce corruption, it is not fit for modern society."
- "It’s even worse than I go into here. I’m not going to list all the ways the government exposes you because I don’t want to give people too many ideas, but it is truly atrocious," added Wall.
