WonderFi’s president emailed CBC a statement confirming its security. Additionally, the company confirmed to BetaKit that customer data was not compromised.

“(WonderFi) is fully cooperating with the Toronto Police Service in this active investigation,” a spokesperson for Shurka revealed. BetaKit.

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

WonderFi owns two of the most popular crypto exchanges in Canada, Bitby and Coinsqaure. Additionally, the company also owns the SmartPay crypto payment platform 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 chief security officer of US security firm Casa, addressed the growing problem in comments to CBC News.

“They (cryptocurrencies) are incredibly easy to transport, incredibly easy to take someone’s possession versus a bank or an armored truck,” Lopp began.

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

Police later confirmed that the investigation into Shurka’s kidnapping was ongoing and, at the time of writing, had not released further details regarding the incident.