14 DAY TRIAL // A Florida man lost $28,000 he wanted to exchange into Bitcoin after he decided to make an offline exchange instead of using one of the many online Bitcoin trading portals.
Steve Manos, 32, of Lake Worth, Florida, arranged to meet with two men with whom he had done business before, to exchange a sum of money into Bitcoin.
He met with the two in his car, on Monday morning, July 25, 2016, in front of the West Palm Beach Boston Market, the Sun Sentinel reports.
Victim robbed of 42.59 Bitcoin
One of the men sat in the car's front passenger seat, and one behind the driver's seat. As agreed upon, Manos handed the man in the passenger seat a bag with the $28,000, rolled in $1,000 bundles.
The man initially pulled out a laptop, to make the exchange and transfer Bitcoin funds from his account to Manos' Bitcoin wallet.
After taking out the laptop, the man immediately pulled out a knife as well, threatening Manos. The victim, at this point, just told the robbers to take the money and leave.
Things escalated into a fight after the man in the backseat tried to take the victim's gun, found in the car's driver door pocket. The two robbers ran away and fled in their own vehicle, a Honda Acura.
Police arrests one of the crooks
The victim went straight to the police, where he filed an armed robbery report. Because Manos had done business before with the two robbers, he had a phone number at which he reached them to set up exchanges.
He gave the number to local police, who tied it to Andre Allen, 34, of West Boynton. Officers arrested Allen on the same day, who is now in county jail.
There is a reason Bitcoin si a "digital currency," and that's to avoid the same pitfalls and dangers of dealing with fiat currencies, one of which is physical robberies. Of course, there are still digital robberies, known to empty out wallets once in a while.
