Kai Zhuang, 17, went missing in the US last week and the FBI was hunting his kidnapper.
His parents paid a ransom of over SEK 800,000 before he was found frozen in a tent in the wilderness.
Now authorities are warning of the phenomenon where the extortionists control their victim – even though they never meet.
Last Thursday, 17-year-old Kai Zhuang was reported missing.
It was his parents in China who raised the alarm to the school in the city of Riverdale in Utah, USA, where he was an exchange student. The parents stated that their son had been kidnapped and that they were being demanded a ransom, write The Guardian.
Riverdale police launched an operation and searched for the missing exchange student for several days. They had the FBI, the US Embassy in China and Chinese authorities to help them.
An analysis of the 17-year-old’s banking activity, purchases and mobile Internet use led investigators to believe he may be in a tent about four miles north of Riverdale, in a large natural area near the town of Brigham City.
“Due to the cold weather in Utah this time of year, we became concerned for the victim’s safety, he could freeze to death overnight,” the Riverdale Police Department told The Guardian.
Asked for a cheeseburger
On Sunday, the missing teenager was finally found.
A police officer who had hiked up a mountain in the area discovered Kai Zhuang’s tent. There he sat and froze – all alone.
With him in the tent, Kai Zhuang had a heating blanket, a sleeping bag, a small supply of food and water – as well as several telephones.
Police said the exchange student was “very cold and scared” when he was found and had immediately asked for a hot cheeseburger. He also wanted to talk to his family.
By that time, the family had paid 80,000 dollars – about 817,000 Swedish kronor – into the blackmailers’ Chinese bank accounts.
Was monitored by video
The case of Kai Zhuang follows a pattern of cyber kidnappings that have become increasingly common in recent years.
Those posing as kidnappers force a “victim” to isolate themselves somewhere as if the person is in captivity, and then send images to the kidnappers.
The images are then sent to the victim’s family, who are required to pay for the missing person not to be harmed.
If the victim does not obey orders, the kidnappers threaten to harm the victim’s family.
Even if the kidnappers are not physically there, they monitor their victims through video calling services such as Skype or Facetime.
The embassy warns
According to the police, the kidnappers may have taken control of Kai Zhuang as early as December 20. The police had then seen him in the city of Provo in Utah – carrying camping equipment.
That time, the officers made him return to his host family in Riverdale, fearing for his safety in the winter cold. The exchange student had done as they said, and had not mentioned anything about any threats, writes BBC.
A spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington says it has informed its citizens living in the United States to be vigilant against virtual kidnapping and other forms of telecom and online fraud, writes The Guardian.
“Has become more common”
According to Riverdale police, cyberkidnappers have recently become more common, targeting foreign – especially Chinese – exchange students.
The phenomenon has also been seen in Australia and New Zealand, among others.
In one case in Australia in 2020, a father paid the equivalent of SEK 14 million in ransom money when he received a picture of his daughter, who was an exchange student in Sydney, sitting gagged and bound.
The father contacted the police in Sydney, who after an hour of searching found the daughter. Well preserved, in a hotel room in the city, writing BBC.
The case of the Sydney student is one of eight cases of cyberkidnapping reported in the first half of 2020.
The other times, the ransom sums had been between SEK 140,000 and SEK 200,000 – which often corresponded to a large part of the family’s savings.
“Very lucrative”
In most cases, the missing victims could be found within 24 hours of the family contacting the police. But the families had often left to contact authorities abroad, and therefore had already managed to get rid of large sums of money.
– The victims of virtual kidnappings that we have been contacted by are traumatized by what has occurred, they believe that they have put themselves and their loved ones in real danger, says Darren Bennet of the police in the Australian state of New South Wales in 2020.
According to the police, the blackmailers work with a large number of possible victims. According to Bennet, they have contacted pretty much everyone in Australia with a Chinese surname.
– They cast their nets very wide and get a handful of people who fall for it, which is very lucrative for them, he said.
The fact that students have become more isolated during the pandemic is assumed to have made them more vulnerable to ending up in the psychological control of extortionists, according to the police.