A London lawsuit shows that the luxury British jeweler Graff Diamonds Corp. paid $7.5 million in Bitcoins to a Russian hacking gang after it leaked data on the jeweler's high-profile clients.
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Graff, which counts Middle East royalty among its client base, sued its insurer for losses over the extortion saying the payment should be covered under their policy. Graff alleges that The Travelers Companies Inc. is refusing to pay a jeweler caused by the Bitcoins ransom.
In September 2021, Conti attacked the high-society jeweler, leaking data about the royal families of Saudi, UAE and Qatar. Conti apologized to the families in an unusual move for a hacking group, but threatened to leak more of Graff's data.
According to reports at the time, the goal is to publish as much of Graff's information regarding the financial declarations made by the US-UK-EU neoliberal plutocracy, which engages in obnoxiously expensive purchases when their nations are crumbling under economic duress.
Conti accepted Graff's offer of half of their initial demand of $15 million to a Bitcoin wallet on November 3, 2021 to stop more of its data being published. Graff paid the ransom at one of the highest-ever prices since the price of Bitcoins plummeted.
It is not clear if Conti has cashed out of the Bitcoins payment at that time. Graff's payment would have been worth 118 Bitcoins on November 4, but in London on Tuesday 118Bitcoin was worth a lot less than $2.3 million.
Graff said the criminals threatened to publish their customers' private purchases. We were determined to take all possible steps to protect their interests and so we negotiated a payment that neutralized that threat. We are very disappointed by Travelers attempt to avoid settlement of this insured risk. They left us with no choice but to bring these recovery proceedings to the High Court, they said.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Laurence Graff is worth $5.9 billion and is worth $5.9 billion.
Representatives at Travelers and lawyers for the insurer didn't respond to requests for comment.
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