WonderFi’s president emailed CBC a statement confirming his safety. Furthermore, the company confirmed to BetaKit that no customer data was compromised.

“(WonderFi) is offering its full cooperation to the Toronto Police Service in this active investigation,” a spokesperson for Shurka revealed. BetaKit.

“The company can confirm that customer funds and data remain secure and have not been affected by this incident. Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our employees.”

WonderFi is the owner of two of Canada’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitby and Coinsqaure. In addition, the company also owns the crypto payment platform SmartPay and has a stake in Tetra Trust, a crypto custodian.

This incident comes just as the price of Bitcoin is hitting a new high, and as a result, the number of crypto-related extortions and thefts has increased.

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and head of security at US security firm Casa, discussed this growing problem in comments made to CBC News.

“They (cryptocurrencies) are incredibly easy to carry, incredibly easy to take possession of from someone compared to a bank or an armored truck,” Lopp began.

“The average crypto person, even early adopters who can be multi-millionaires, tend not to have a lot of physical security and often don’t have great operational security or privacy.”

Police later confirmed that the investigation into Shurka’s abduction is ongoing and, at the time of writing, had not released any further details about the incident.