A Hong Kong man was sentenced to seven years in prison by a Canadian court docket for participating in a brazen residence invasion with three others — robbing a British Columbia couple of $1.6 million price of bitcoin after a 13-hour ordeal throughout which they sexually assaulted and tortured them.
Tsz Wing Boaz Chan was sentenced on Thursday for what a British Columbia judge called “an elaborately deliberate offense” that concerned “excessive violence over a really lengthy interval, with huge monetary penalties, on prime of the profound emotional affect it would proceed to have on the victims.”
On the night of April 27 final yr, the assailants pulled as much as the house in Port Moody, BC, in a rented Honda Odyssey that was first noticed on CCTV round 5:28 p.m.
By 6 p.m., the van returned and 4 males — together with Tsz Wing Boaz Chan — have been seen exiting the automobile.
Two of the intruders, dressed in faux Canada Submit mailman uniforms, knocked on the door of the Canadian couple and gained entry to the house, permitting the remaining attackers inside.
What adopted was a 13.5-hour ordeal in which the family was zip-tied, crushed, waterboarded, sexually assaulted and threatened whereas the boys drained roughly US$1.6 million from their cryptocurrency accounts.
The assailants are mentioned to have focused the family as a result of the husband “boasted and exaggerated about his success with cryptocurrency investments” and have been well-known in the Chinese language expat neighborhood in British Columbia, based on court docket paperwork.
Each the husband and spouse, whose identities have remained nameless, have been subjected to waterboarding — a type of torture the place water is poured over a moist fabric masking the face and respiration passages, inflicting the feeling of drowning.
At one level, the boys waterboarded the spouse whereas her husband was compelled to look at. Based on court docket paperwork, he was informed that his spouse would die if he didn’t expose the passwords to his cryptocurrency accounts.
The court docket paperwork additionally state that the husband, recognized as “WG,” was stripped bare and crushed a number of instances all through the evening with an object — struggling vital trauma to his legs and chest.
The assailants threatened to chop off WG’s genitals if he didn’t present them with entry to his accounts.
The court docket papers additionally alleged that the assailants compelled the couple’s younger daughter, whose age has not been specified, to simulate noises in order to “sound sexy and moan” in order to make her dad and mom assume she was being sexually assaulted.
Based on court docket paperwork, a person talking over the telephone with a voice filter instructed the younger daughter to make sounds that may make her father assume she was being raped.
The assailants additionally compelled her to strip bare and contact herself whereas filming her. They then threatened to publish the video on her and her dad and mom’ social media accounts, based on court docket paperwork.
Finally, the person gave the attackers entry to his cryptocurrency accounts, however they “informed him it was not sufficient, as they needed 200 bitcoins,” based on court docket paperwork.
The assailants finally lowered the demand to 100 bitcoins, although finally they withdrew $1.6 million price of the digital property — “which successfully drained their accounts,” the authorized submitting acknowledged.
At about 8 a.m. April 28, the family’s daughter escaped and known as 911 from a close-by buddy’s residence.
Across the similar time, CCTV captured three of the boys, together with Chan, fleeing the world in the Honda Odyssey.
Police obtained the wellness-check name at 8 a.m. and arrived on the home roughly half-hour later, discovering the dad and mom certain and injured inside. WG, the husband, emerged from the house bare from the waist down together with his arms tied behind his again.
The assailants meticulously deliberate the assault — having carried out surveillance and planted cameras across the property in order to assemble detailed intelligence on the family’s cryptocurrency holdings and each day routines.
Earlier than fleeing, the attackers tried to destroy proof by soaking the family’s electronics in a tub crammed with water and bleach, based on court docket paperwork.
The Submit has sought remark from Chan’s legal professional.
