Toronto-based cryptocurrency company WonderFi has revealed that it spent $3.6 million CAD on a ransom payment and subsequent security upgrades during the fourth quarter in connection with the kidnapping of its president and CEO Dean Skurka in Toronto late last year.
WonderFi disclosed this figure in a public filing last week. The $3.6-million amount, which was not itemized, includes both the cost of the ransom to secure Skurka’s release, and expenses that the company incurred to enhance its security controls and procedures following the incident.
The $3.6-million amount includes both the cost of the ransom paid to secure Skurka’s release and security upgrades that the company made afterwards in response.
While the document did not specify the size of the ransom, CBC News—which was first to identify Skurka as the victim—previously reported that a ransom of $1 million was paid electronically, citing a source familiar with the investigation.
BetaKit has reached out to WonderFi and Skurka for additional comment and detail regarding the breakdown of that $3.6 million, how it was paid, and the specific security measures the company has instituted since then.
The kidnapping occurred just before 6 p.m. on Nov. 6 in the area of University Ave. and Richmond St. W., in Toronto’s financial district, after suspects forced the victim into a vehicle and made a demand for money, a Toronto Police Service spokesperson told BetaKit last year, noting that the victim was later located in Centennial Park in Etobicoke, a western borough of Toronto that is approximately a 23-kilometre drive away, uninjured.
At the time, WonderFi confirmed to BetaKit that Skurka was involved in an “incident” that day but was now safe, noting that the company was co-operating with the Toronto Police Service on an active investigation and the firm’s client funds and data were unaffected. Skurka later addressed the incident publicly in LinkedIn and Twitter posts.
Last month, WonderFi senior vice-president of communications, Charlie Aikenhead told BetaKit that Skurka is doing well now, and noted WonderFi has made a number of changes since then, including hiring security personnel, but had no other updates he could share on the incident.
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WonderFi, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns two of Canada’s most popular crypto exchanges in Bitbuy and Coinsquare, which together held over $2.1 billion in client assets under custody as of the end of last year. The company, which also owns crypto payments platform SmartPay and a stake in crypto custodian Tetra Trust, expanded to Australia in 2024 and announced plans to move into derivatives trading last month.
WonderFi’s filings cite “physical security incidents” as a risk related to operating in the crypto sector, noting that “the digital asset industry in Canada and internationally continues to face risks from organized crime including murders, kidnappings, blackmail, extortion, violence and threats of violence.”
High-profile figures in the crypto world face significant security risks. “$5 wrench attacks” entail robbers targeting people known to hold large amounts of crypto and threatening or physically attacking them in attempts to gain access to their private keys, the alphanumeric codes used as passwords to cryptocurrency wallets.
Anthony Di Iorio, the Toronto-based co-founder of Ethereum, announced plans to leave the crypto industry in 2021 due to security concerns, but returned a year later when he launched blockchain platform Andiami.
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Kidnappings involving high-profile figures in the crypto community are not uncommon. As Wired has reported, crypto-related abductions have sent crypto executives and investors in search of ways to protect themselves, including by hiring bodyguards.
A database compiled by Jameson Lopp, co-founder of Bitcoin security company Casa indicates that there were 31 instances of violence against known crypto owners in 2024, and 18 so far this year, putting 2025 on track to more than double last year’s total.
Crypto-related kidnappings have also occurred in Toronto before in recent years, with the cases of self-proclaimed ‘Crypto King’ Aiden Pleterski (who has since been charged with fraud) and wealthy Chinese student Wanzhen Lu.
Feature image courtesy WonderFi.