> It sounds more like being involved in crypto than being publicly wealthy is a security concern. Which is unsurprising.
In Munich we have a serious problem with watch-robbers snatching people's expensive watches while driving on a motorcycle. Utterly insane but also utterly profitable if you have channels where to sell stolen watches.
I looked it up, these are like $100k->$500k watches being stolen.
How often is that actually happening?
Also, this seems like it could easily be an insurance scam. It seems just a little insane for someone to be casually walking around with a half million dollar watch on their wrist and some thief just happens to know "Hey, that looks like a half million dollar watch!"
Often enough. One gang alone took 18 raids in about two years, making about 1.5 million euros [1] - it's about once a month the police actually bother to make a report. Even if one assumes they can get only half the price due to no heritage, 750k for 12 people tax-free, that's more than even experienced developers can net in a year.
> It seems just a little insane for someone to be casually walking around with a half million dollar watch on their wrist and some thief just happens to know "Hey, that looks like a half million dollar watch!"
That's the thing. Munich has a ton of luxury shops for obscenely rich tourists, a good scout is all it needs. Quite some victims actually didn't have insurance.
Rich people exist. If you think spending a million bucks on a watch makes someone an idiot, you have failed to internalize how rich a large number of rich people actually are.
Nevertheless it's one of the weirdest, most niche ways possible to flex wealth. Only true watch aficionados will be able to spot just how much money you had spent on that watch, but everyone can see how much the car you ride, your villa or private jet is worth.
It's very much a, I guess dog whistle? Hidden in plain sight secret handshake? I have one expensive watch left after my divorce/finance crash. When I wear that watch in certain circles it instantly elevates me to being considered legitimate.
Poor example but we had a sister company VP (but more a reports directly to the owner type roll) in the office from the UK and he keyed in on my watch instantly. Which led him to inquire my background and find out I hadn't always been a lowly IT Director, and he had a lot of conversations you wouldn't normally have with IT and trusted what I said way more than my boss the CFO (I know IT shouldn't be under a CFO), all because he saw my watch. Instant change for my standing in the company. It's lame but it's the world we live in.
A good watch can be a worthwhile investment. I recommend a non-trendy somewhat off name used one. Doesn't even need to be all that much. The one I got to keep is just a TAG and still is enough that they notice. Lawyers have treated me better. Heck even cops notice and treat me better. A good watch and a pair of good shoes (like some nice Italian boots) can make a world of difference in how interactions go. Lots of rich dudes wear Levi's so they aren't a tell you're a normie. But shoes and watch are. Just don't get something that gets dated quick because then you instantly have give them the ick. I've also had random women I've had drinks with straight up ask about it, that gives me the ick, even though I wore it specifically for them to notice, which is again ick. We're funny monkeys.
When you're that rich you are going to be surrounded by people with crazy expensive stuff, and exposed to media about crazy expensive stuff, so much, that it will be more obvious. Like how you don't have to be a watch aficionado to know that an Omega is more expensive than a Casio; you just have to have heard people talking about "regular" vs "expensive" watches and seen some commercials and such. Same deal, just now talking about "regular" watches is a much higher baseline.
(I think this is related to how "a million dollars" still sounds impressive because of the change from 6 to 7 digits even though it's not nearly as much money as it used to be. A lot of people have super-dated signifiers for what "really rich" means because of the persistent anchoring of the terms.)
> it's one of the weirdest, most niche ways possible to flex wealth
What you're saying here is factually incorrect, it's actually the most enduring and widespread way to flex wealth, and it has been common to nearly all cultures for thousands and thousands of years.
In fact this behavior is apparently so innate to our existence that it seems to have developed completely independently in isolated societies. Both the Queen of England and the Aztec King had the habit of draping their body in hand-crafted finework jewelry, precious metal, and gems.
The phenomenon is shared by neighborhood drug dealers, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, wealthy Chinese heiresses, and Polynesian village chiefs. And maybe your wife.
> The phenomenon is shared by neighborhood drug dealers, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, wealthy Chinese heiresses, and Polynesian village chiefs. And maybe your wife.
At least I am certain my wife doesn't like much jewelry besides our self-made marriage rings (something I can only recommend to do for anyone wishing to get married!) and earrings, and I'm just the same :'D
But still, it is a thing mostly seen in the rich elites - everyone else (outside of rappers and drug dealers) doesn't do it.
The thing with a $500k watch is it keeps its value. It might even increase in value. So it's not a frivolous waste of money, you can get most of it back unless you break or lose it.
In Singapore it's not uncommon. Cars are taxed enough[1] to mean most people who'd drive a Porsche find other ways to display their wealth.
[1] "For example, a new standard Toyota Camry Hybrid costs around S$250,000 in Singapore, which includes the cost of a COE and taxes. That is about six times more expensive than in the US." .... "The lowest COE for a car costs S$104,000"
Not necessarily. They have old car auctions for wealthy people (like Barrett-Jackson) where certain models really do fetch as much as owners paid for them, or more. It's still a gamble, but I think your odds of at least holding your value with a classic car are much better than with a watch.
I could be wrong of course; I know a lot more about cars than I do overpriced luxury watches, after all. But I suspect the watches are much more like diamonds: only "valuable" to the initial buyer (and mainly for sentimental reasons), and largely worthless to everyone else. (Yes, a resale market for used Rolexes and the like exists, but you're not going to get the same price for your 20-year-old Rolex as you paid for it.)
Oddly enough I live in a very small town where it's a point of pride to drive in and about with cars from the 1920s, 30s and 40s .. tractors from the 1950s are in use on back market garden paddocks, etc.
It's a state "founders" town and there's a lot of generational wealth being flexed keeping old stuff running and in use.
It's modern John Deere's etc on the 4,000 acre farms of course, but still driving a "classic" farm truck to town because it was Granddad's first truck and renno'd when it was found at the back of the old barn.
I mean if you can move that watch in a way that doesn't get you caught for 1/4 of it's retail price, twice a year, that's a decent salary. Doesn't need to happen all that much.
Right, but that requires there to be an identifiable and large enough population of people wandering around with such watches on their wrists.
I guess what I'm saying is I can understand a lot better how the "kia boyz" thing happened. There are a lot of easily identifiable kias everywhere. But luxury watches just seems so niche that it's hard to think someone stealing them would be a crime wave.
> But luxury watches just seems so niche that it's hard to think someone stealing them would be a crime wave.
Well, you won't see that happening in a small village. Not enough people wearing expensive watches there. But in large cities with a huge amount of both domestic and foreign rich people it's bound to develop.
As long as you have a good spotter able to determine if someone is wearing a watch worth barely a few hundred dollars (or less, knockoffs are a thing) or a legit 50k upwards luxury watch, it's one of the more profitable ways of criming: no weapons or drugs involved which tends to yield much harder sentencing in most jurisdictions, less chance of bystanders intervening like in a conventional robbery (most people don't even realize what has happened until they see the motorcycle speeding away), less chance of the victim fighting back or attracting help, almost no chance of getting caught on camera, and the stolen goods are innocuous to carry around - unlike with guns or drugs, if you get in a traffic control or whatnot, the chance that the cop will ask about the watch you're wearing is almost zero because your average cop has zero idea if you're wearing a 5000 dollars Rolex or a 50k dollars Rolex.
I've heard of that in Europe for more than a decade, and started hearing it in San Francisco for about 2-3 years. The usual "SF is a hellhole" complainers act like it's unique to here.
1. Handle in large quantities. The ransom paid here was $1 million. With crypto, transferring that much is a few keystrokes. With cash, it's basically a large bag of cash that needs to be moved around.
2. Hold for ransom. Given point #1, kidnappers (of people and data) know that it's much easier to demand payment of large amounts in crypto than cash. If you kidnap a rich person in the crypto world, kidnappers know it's easy for him to sign over a very large amount of bitcoin quickly, which looks to be what happened here. Even for a very wealthy person, it's not logistically easy to get a million dollars in cash, never mind hand it over in a way that isn't a huge risk for the kidnappers.
3. Launder. Crypto tumblers are still a thing despite US government crackdown. Laundering cash with recorded serial numbers is much harder.
I'm not denying that crypto may have some legitimate uses, but it's basically a dream come true for criminals.
If criminals know somebody holds a significant amount of crypto, such as the CEO of a crypto company, they don't need to have them contact somebody else to withdraw and deliver a large amount of physical cash. They don't need to convince anyone they're serious. If the victim has their phone with them or can remember a password, then the criminals just have to coerce the victim into making a transfer.
Arguably, this isn't even really kidnapping in the traditional sense. It's high-tech mugging.
Owning a significant amount of crypto-currency and carrying the ability to make a transfer around in your head or pocket is basically the same as carrying a suitcase full of cash.
Your comment that it is logistically easy for the random rich guy to buy large sum of crypto is simply not true. For one, you'd have to go through KYC which takes time, and you can't just open an account and buy 100k in crypto (yet alone millions) as you'd need a history of activity on your account and multiple limit increases.
True, but not in this mental exercise where the person is being held hostage. They would still need to liquidate assets and transfer to crypto, and also need connections to this type of seller. In that case, that’d probably already have it.
Crypto does have significant advantages (handling in large quantities and rapid payment, as you described) but it is meaningfully harder to launder since blockchains are public and forensics is straightforward. The DoJ and crypto forensics firms has posted about this at length.
You're just explaining why crypto is becoming increasingly popular for businesses in general: the tech works.
1. Yes, everything is recorded on the block chain, but tumblers work. But yes, I agree it's hard to move large amounts of money on the blockchain since it's public.
2. "You're just explaining why crypto is becoming increasingly popular for businesses in general" Citation definitely needed. I used to see "pay with Bitcoin!" in a couple places online about 5-8 years ago. I never see it now, and hardly anyone I know, even big time "crypto people", actually use crypto to buy anything. Almost all the "uses" I hear are speculation or criminal uses. The only legitimate use I've actually seen is cross-border payments.
> it's hard to move large amounts of money on the blockchain since it's public
This was a $1mm ransom. The attraction of crypto isn't that it's easy to launder. It's that it's easy to steal. Beat a crypto bro on the head and you know you can effect a verifiable, irreversible transfer. Wiring money involves many more steps and has all kinds of reverse options.
Just look at all the movie plots that hinge on "ransom payment gone wrong" scenes, where the actual handing over of payment results in some kidnappers getting killed. With crypto, it just becomes "send a large amount of bitcoin to address X by date Y, otherwise we start shipping you various body parts of the kidnappee on dates Y+1, Y+2, etc." This dynamic is also the reason ransomware is so effective.
Not that many people keep a big stack of physical cash under their pillow, and organisations that do keep cash are well-known robbery targets (e.g. banks, mints).
It's substantially harder to kidnap someone and force them to sell their business and then give the cash to you than it is to make them transfer their crypto. And realistically most people's wealth will be in a company or some shares, etc.
This mindset can only be born of stability. If your country descends into chaos, having money on hand is better than having money in a bank, and therefore, not on hand.
Silver coins is my bet. I'm not a prepper by any means, but I always keep some silver on hand. If nothing else, they make good gifts for kids. They feel like little pirates when you give them silver coins.
I buy, restore, and sell woodworking and metalworking tools and vehicles. If I did it full time I could have that much on hand. I think I have like 25k in case a really good deal pops up, and it's a very side gig.
In which case you really shouldn't tell a public forum about it.
Maybe it's my jaded European mindset, but - rich people have been a target since the dawn of civilization, flaunting wealth is a good way to attract attention from bad people.
The chances of someone finding me through this public forum are very low. Following this username takes you to a person from Reddit who I am not. If you follow the clues in my posts, you'll narrow it down to a farmer who also works in colleges, and who lived in the Midwest at some point, but doesn't anymore, and whose parents live in an area of the world that is kind of arid. There's a lot of those type of people.
I'm more concerned about locals finding out. That's why I don't talk about the cash I have on hand in my real life, ever.
That's insane and irresponsible. There's a reason that you can't make large "cash" purchases in physical cash - even with a certified or cashier's check you're limited to under $50k total or $100k/day before getting into private banking where your limits are higher.
>There's a reason that you can't make large "cash" purchases in physical cash
I don't understand what you mean with this.
And also, yes you can? I've purchased cattle (~100k) and vehicles (5-40k) with cash.
It's not insane and irresponsible. I legitimately do not understand your attitude with that. As long as you don't walk around with 100k in your hand waving it around, what's the danger? The world isn't as bad as the news would have you believe.
Also, Some people prefer doing business without involving electronics. I've bought things using cash, silver, canning jars, and baseball cards. I prefer to barter for goods and labor, but some people prefer cash. What's the problem with that?
Had a Ukrainian girlfriend that had $25,000 in her go bag, just in case. She was not even close to wealthy and that was a considerable fraction of her yearly salary. She was the complete opposite of a criminal.
> It sounds more like being involved in crypto than being publicly wealthy
Maybe for now. The cryptocurrenty ricb are lower hanging fruit for sure, but crypto also make other kinds of kidnapping easier so I doubt it will remain soley in that realm.
I'm not buying it. There are regulated and under/non-regulated financial institutions. Coinbase is regulated. Eastern European casino/crypto is under/non-regulated. Under/non-regulated financial institutions attract fraud and crime like software developers to an online news aggregate.
It's almost like the crypto markets attract criminals!