What To Know
- Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has flagged a report suggesting Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance may be linked to a cryptocurrency-related wrench attack.
- Alleged ransom notes demanding millions in Bitcoin surfaced shortly after Guthrie’s disappearance.
- Experts advise increased caution with online privacy and social media sharing amid a rise in wrench attacks.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos is aware of a recent report suggesting Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance may have been a wrench attack — when perpetrators use kidnapping or violence to coerce a victim into turning over cryptocurrency.
In a report published last month, the Web3 security service provider CertiK named the Nancy Guthrie case as an example of a proxy target, a vulnerable relative of the extortion target in a wrench attack.
And in an X post this week, Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz reported that while Nanos declined to discuss the CertiK report, the sheriff did say he’d flagged it to the team investigating the Nancy Guthrie case.
Ruiz pointed out, however, that there’s no official indication that Nancy, mother of Today’s Savannah Guthrie, was taken in a wrench attack.
The CertiK report cited past reports of alleged ransom notes in the Nancy Guthrie case. Just days after Nancy’s disappearance from her Arizona home, TMZ received an alleged ransom note demanding millions of dollars in Bitcoin in exchange for Nancy’s release.
Around the same time, Tucson news affiliate KGUN received an alleged ransom note that demanded $6 million.
On February 7, Savannah and her siblings offered to pay for their mother’s return in an Instagram video. “We received your message, and we understand,” Savannah said. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way that we will have peace. This is very valuable to us, and we will pay.”
Amid a reported rise in wrench attacks, Lisa J. Miller, a retired detective and law enforcement executive at the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, offered tips for staying safe.
“Protecting ourselves requires the usual things we have all been told about before — restrict your social media profiles, never post photos of your home, know who the audience is when you post pictures of your children, family, visible signs of financial security,” Miller told Fox News Digital. “Monitor your online presence when it comes to what data is available about you online.”
Miller added, “It’s all easier said than done because we live in an ever-increasing digital world, where more people know and have the skills to mine open source information to get data about you.”