Nancy Guthrie kidnapping: can Bitcoin ransom demand be used to track down the criminals?

By Abdul Jabbar, Dean of Internationalisation, Associate Professor Data Strategy and Analytics, University of Leicester
Araz Zirar, Senior Lecturer in Management (Organisational Behaviour), University of Huddersfield

The kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie – the mother of US news anchor Savannah Guthrie – is the latest in a string of crimes where ransoms have been demanded in Bitcoin.

The 84-year-old was kidnapped from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the middle of the night. A ransom of US$6 million (£4.4 million) has been demanded by the kidnappers.

The scale of the ransom demand, combined with the use of…

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