Man convicted in violent Bitcoin robbery during classified ad deal & separate shooting

The Midden-Nederland court sentenced 19-year-old Ario S. to three years in prison, one of which was conditionally suspended, for a violent robbery in which he helped steal the victim’s cryptocurrencies, specifically, Bitcoin and Ethereum. The man was also sentenced to 8 months in prison for a separate case in which he shot a man and left him blind in one eye.

The cryptocurrency robbery happened on 3 December 2022. The victim responded to a Marktplaats ad to buy Bitcoin. He went to the agreed address in Lelystad and was attacked by several men. They beat him up, hit him in the head with a firearm, and forced him to transfer around 30,000 euros worth of his cryptocurrency to them.

The police traced the victim’s cryptocurrency to the S.’s digital wallet. The authorities also found a converted gas pistol under the pillow of a now-convicted co-suspect in this case that looks strikingly like a weapon S. is holding in photos on his phone. The victim’s DNA was also found on the pistol.

In court, S. claimed that he only had the coins because he had to exchange them for the victim. But the court did not believe this explanation. The court sentenced S. to three years in prison, one of which is conditionally suspended, and ordered him to pay over 8,000 euros in damages to the victim—S.’s share of the loot.

In a separate case, the same court convicted S. of a shooting committed when he was still a minor on 12 September 2022. An argument about drugs ended in a brawl, and S. shot another man in the head with a converted alarm pistol, blinding him in one eye. The bullet is still in the victim’s head and cannot be removed.

In court, S. said that he acted in self-defense and that he acted in a heightened state without thinking. In Wednesday’s ruling, the court agreed that there was a need for S. to defend himself, but not in the way he did it.

Although the victim repeatedly sought confrontation with S., he was unarmed, the court pointed out. It also did not believe that S. had not considered his actions - he first walked to the shed to get the weapon and then threateningly reloaded it several times to scare the victim before firing the potentially lethal shot at the victim’s head. That does not describe an impulsive act.

The court sentenced him to eight months of juvenile detention for the shooting. Given that the suspect is now an adult, the court determined that this juvenile detention would be served in a regular penitentiary institution instead of a juvenile detention center.