Nigel Wright, a 45-year-old sheep farmer from Lincolnshire, England, has been accused of trying to extort Bitcoin worth £1.4 million, approximately $1.8 million, from retail giant Tesco.
As reported by The Guardian on August 11, Wright attempted to blackmail Tesco, claiming he had hidden slivers of metal inside baby food and in a number of the retail giant's stores and would reveal the locations if the cryptocurrency ransom was paid.
200 Bitcoin demanded
It is alleged that Wright had bombarded the retail giant with emails and letters using the name “Guy Brush” from May 2018 to February 2020. His initial demand was 100 Bitcoin, but this amount rose to 200 valued at nearly £1.4 million in February.
Wright was part of a group of disgruntled dairy farmers known as “Guy Brush and the Dairy Pirates” who felt underpaid by Tesco. He, therefore, saw blackmail as the only way out of this stalemate.
According to the announcement:
“The prosecution alleges that over a period of two years from spring 2018, the defendant hoped to make himself rich by means of blackmail.”
Tesco received complaints from two customers from Rochdale and Lockerbie in November and December 2019 after they found slivers of metal in baby food while feeding their children.
Fear for his life
Wright claimed that he carried out the blackmail because he feared for his life and that of his family as a group of men called Travellers had made way to his land and demanded £1 million.
Julian Christopher, the prosecutor, noted:
“You, the jury, will have to determine whether his story of being threatened by Travellers is true. The prosecution suggests that it changes whenever he is confronted with more evidence which he has to explain, and is completely untrue.”
Nevertheless, Wright denied planting the shards of metal in the baby found retrieved from Tesco’s Rochdale branch.
Recently, an Australian female hacker was slapped with a 2-year jail term because of her connecting to a $400k Ripple crypto heist.