Many thought that Lord Voldemort had died with the final Harry Potter film, but he has returned to Singapore and began to demand Bitcoin. Well, at least that is what Ye Lin Myint, wanted his former clients to believe as he sent threatening letters to them.

The 36-year-old former Insurance agent was jailed for two years and five months this week after a trail which saw revelations that Ye had sent 33 messages to what he thought were previous business partners and clients, hoping to strong-arm them into paying him Bitcoin, worth $6,500 and $9,900 at the time.

Prior to the events, he worked for Prudential Insurance and his victims were people he felt had treated him badly by either turning up late, cancelling insurance policies and by coming close to making deals with him but eventually using another agent or company.

These encounters and work issues clearly put a dark spell on him, with Ye in July 2017 creating an email account on his wife’s laptop and opening a Bitcoin wallet to recieve the digital money under the name ‘Lord Voldermort’, the main evil character in the Harry potter book and film series.

He began sending the emails in August of 2017 to the former clients and even went as far as seeking out their neighbours to add further pressure in order to get his Bitcoin spoils. Ye threatened to do harm to their homes and other mean meaures if they did not pressure their neighbours to pay him the cryptocurrency. All this whilst signing of the letters as Lord Voldemort. One such letter read:

“I can make your life total humiliated and miserable [sic] in your Myanmar community. I can make you become jobless. I can even physically harm you and your wife and your parents if I want to.”

Unfortunately for the dark lord aka Ye, none of the recipients followed through with his wishes and he was arrested following extensive investigations which used DNA and multiple victim statements.

Ye pleaded guilty to five charges of criminal intimidation and eight charges under the Protection from Harassment Act, with another 30 charges taken into consideration.

The prosecutor for the case said, “This is by far one of the worst cases of harassment prosecuted under the Protection from Harassment Act,” and with troubling messages like, “Do you really want to stay stressful not knowing whether (your daughter) will be safe or not” –  it is not hard to see that this assessment is unfair.

As the Judge rightly pointed out, use of character names such as Lord Voldemort and Dr Bruce Banner, the genteel alter ego of Marvel character The Incredible Hulk should not take away from the severity of the case.
However, as this bear market continues we all need a chuckle and the crypto space is crying out for a young boy wizard to save us from this dark winter and cast a spell to produce a bullrun.