International Student Falls Victim to Cyber Kidnapping

Scams are tales as old as time, and with the major advancements in technology we have witnessed these past few decades, virtual actions of fraud, also known as cybercrime, have become more prevalent.

Coming in many forms, some of them being ransomware, phishing, cyberbullying, and kidnapping scams, cyber crimes have resulted in billions of dollars lost and an abundance of victims.

Kai Zhuang, a 17-year-old international student from China, was found in a mountainous area last December after falling victim to a cyber kidnapping scam which, according to the authorities, has become prevalent among foreign students residing in the US.

Extortion Scheme

Unlike traditional abductions, cyber kidnapping scams, also known as virtual kidnapping, are cases where people are tricked into paying a ransom to free a loved one or anyone they know or are close to without anyone actually being kidnapped. According to the FBI, the aforementioned extortion scheme is always what happens in a virtual kidnapping case.

In the case of Zhuang, who has been living in the city of Riverdale, Utah, for high school, the cyber kidnappers appear to have committed the crime all the way from China. Zhuang was found in a tent outside of Brigham City on New Year’s Eve after being reported missing on the 28th of December. The report was made by the Riverdale police department after Zhuang’s parents called the authorities to say that they got a ransom call for Zhuang’s kidnapping.

According to Riverdale’s chief of police, Casey Warren, the scammers threatened to harm Zhuang’s family if he refused to comply with their demands. Scared for his family, Zhuang isolated himself, stopped communicating with his parents, and took pictures of himself as if being held captive as per the cyber kidnappers' request. The scammers also forced Zhuang to use Skype and FaceTime to record certain videos for them to manipulate.

On the other side of this exchange are the kidnappers sending said pictures and manipulated videos to Zhuang’s family, claiming that they have, in fact, kidnapped Zhuang. Worried for Zhuang’s safety, the family paid the “ransom,” being extorted $80K for Zhuang’s release.

Prior to the “kidnapping” incident, the scammers tried a scheming method that proved not to have worked. Instead of extorting the family, they demanded money from Zhuang that, if not given, would lead to them performing violent acts on his family. After Zhuang asked for additional money over what he would usually ask for, his parents grew suspicious, complained, and stopped giving the requested sum. The failure led the cyber kidnappers to try a different method.

Search and Isolation

The day Zhuang went missing, his host family claims to have seen or heard him in the kitchen early in the morning, with no indication that anything worrisome was going on. Upon realization that he had disappeared, Zhuang had already turned his phone off, making the search challenging for the police.

After tracking his phone’s latest geodata through phone ping records, the authorities believed that Zhung had isolated himself about 25 miles north of an area near Brigham City. The authorities became especially worried due to the cold weather in Utah at that time of year, fearing that Zhuang could have frozen to death overnight.

A sergeant hiking the mountains on foot then found Zhuang’s tent, which was said not to have a heat source, filled with only a heat blanket, a sleeping bag, and limited food and water, as well as the phones presumably used to carry out the kidnapping scheme. Upon the rescue, Zhuang, who was found very cold and scared, requested to speak to his family right away, along with a warm cheeseburger for company. Zhuang was checked by medical professionals and confirmed to not suffer from hypothermia or any other injuries.

Though the fact that the cyber kidnappers were not actually placed in the US became a source of slight relief for Riverdale’s chief of police, it is hair-raising to think such an abysmal crime can be done from over 6000 miles away. After working with the FBI, the US Embassy in China, and Chinese officials, Warren has stated that he hopes parties in China will investigate the case further to get justice for Zhuang’s family and help prevent the crime from happening to more families in the future.

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