Shenzhen "Fake Hacker" Sentenced to 3 Years and 3 Months for Attempted Extortion of 0.88 Bitcoin and 90,000 USDT from Enterprise

TechFlow News, August 6, according to Procuratorate Daily, an employee of a Shenzhen company, under pressure from over 400,000 yuan in online loans, stole core company R&D materials and disguised himself as an overseas hacker to demand a ransom of 0.88 BTC and 90,000 USDT from the company. He was ultimately sentenced to three years and three months in prison for extortion (attempted) and fined 10,000 yuan.

According to the Shenzhen Pingshan District Procuratorate, employee Jia exploited vulnerabilities in the company's data management to illegally download and copy R&D confidential materials from 43 folders. He then impersonated an overseas hacker via anonymous emails and other methods, threatening to leak core technical materials. He successively demanded the company pay 0.88 BTC, 0.8 BTC, and 90,000 Tether (USDT). The company chose to report to the police due to concerns about technical data leakage, and no ransom was actually paid.