Dairy Farmer Blackmailed Retail Giant Tesco To Gain €1 Million in Bitcoin

A dairy farmer is currently facing a lawsuit for allegedly blackmailing the third-largest retailer in the world, Tesco, which is a British multinational retailer, to get more than 1 million euros worth of Bitcoin.

According to a YorkshirePost report, the accused had allegedly contaminated several jars of baby food in the retail stores owned by Tesco. He contacted the company via numerous letters and emails, demanding a payment of more than 1 million euros in bitcoin in a bid to reveal which of the stores he had planted the contaminated food.

The 45-year-old man, Nigel Wright, had been sending those emails and letters between May 2018 and February 2020 under the name “Guy Brush.” He was charged with two counts of contaminating food and four counts of blackmail, which he had outrightly denied.

During his first trial, the jury was told that the accused had demanded 100 bitcoin from the retail company, claiming to be among a group of angry diary farmers who thought that Tesco was not paying them enough and going by the name “Guy Brush and diary pirates.”

However, the demand later went up to 200 bitcoin around February 2020, which is worth around 1.4 million euros. Speaking on this Prosecutor, Julian Christopher said, “The prosecution alleges that over a period of two years from spring 2018, the defendant hoped to make himself rich by means of blackmail.”

The threats were taken seriously when two customers from two different locations, Rochdale and Lockerbie, claimed to have found traces of metal in the jars of baby food that they fed to their children, around November and December 2019.

Wright had also said that he would continue to contaminate any product sold by the retail company if his demands are not met, adding that the chemicals had also been injected into other food jars apart from the baby food. However, there has not been any evidence to show that this is true.

Wright was arrested in his home on a farm outside of Market Rasen, where he lived with his wife, two children, and their flock of sheep.

During his trial, Wright denied planting the metal pieces that were found in the jars of baby food. He admitted to being involved in some of the threats that were sent to Tesco. He claimed that he was forced to send the letters and emails by some travelers who had threatened to rape his wife and kill both him and his children if he did not provide them with the sum of 1 million euros.

The prosecutor in charge of his case stated, “You the jury will have to determine whether his story of being threatened by travelers is true. The prosecution suggests that it changes whenever he is confronted with more evidence which he has to explain, and is completely untrue.”

On one of his charges of blackmail, Wright had allegedly threatened to kill a driver whom he had argued with by sending the man a bullet-ridden picture of himself and his wife along with a letter demanding payment of 150,000 euros in bitcoin.

His case is still under trial and is set to last for three weeks.

In a similar development, Coinfomania reported the arrest of the 17-year old alleged mastermind behind the Twitter hack in July. The teenager owns over $3 million in Bitcoin, although there are debates regarding the means by which he acquired the assets.