From Park Mo to Nikolai Mushegian, here is a list of crypto barons that died under strange circumstances in 2022. 

Nearly everyone aspires to make billions of dollars on crypto investments. Still, only a few have been able to accomplish this. In 2022, a mere 19 crypto trailblazers made it to the Forbes Billionaire list. 

As hard as it is to make billions in crypto, living a normal life afterwards can be equally hard. Over the past year, the news has been flooded with stories of crypto billionaires and millionaires ending up dead. Here are some of the most suspicious crypto-related deaths that have taken place recently. 

Park Mo

The most recent case of a crypto billionaire passing away is that of Park Mo. Park was the Vice President of the South Korean broadcasting equipment manufacturing company Vidente. He was also the largest shareholder of the South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. 

Park was found dead outside his house on December 30, 2022, soon after he had been named the primary suspect in an embezzlement and stock manipulation case. The case had been going on since 2021, and the top executives at Bithumb, including the company’s Chairman Kang Jong-Hyun, had been changed because of it. According to South Korean news outlets, Park reportedly took his own life due to the allegations against him. 

Javier Biosca

Javier Biosca was one of the biggest crypto scammers in Spain. He founded the crypto investing firm company Algorithms Group in London in 2019. He used it to lure investors in, promising them a 20-25% increase in their investment each week. But it was all a farce. It is believed that each person who “invested” their money via Algorithms Group lost at least €50,000 (US$52,000). 

Biosca was arrested for his crimes in June 2021. During the investigation, Spanish authorities found that he had over 600 victims, including judges and treasury inspectors. Suffice it to say he had made some very high-profile enemies. Biosca was mysteriously bailed out of jail by an unknown guarantor who posted US$1 million for his bail. At this point, he had lost 40 pounds (over 18 kg) from the harsh conditions of the prison and had been beaten up badly by prison inmates. 

When it was discovered that he couldn’t pay back any of the people he’d scammed, the bail was revoked. Just like Park Mo, Biosca committed suicide. He was found dead at his residence on November 22 from falling off the terrace. The reason for his suicide is believed to be that he simply couldn’t bear to go back to jail or face the wrath of those that he had defrauded. 

Vyacheslav Taran

Vyacheslav Taran was a successful entrepreneur, having created a foreign exchange trading company called Forex Club in Russia in 1997. He expanded into the crypto space with his company, Libertex trading platform, and had a net worth of about US$20 million around the time of his death. 

Taran passed away on November 25, 2022, in a helicopter crash on his way to Monaco. Besides the helicopter pilot, Taran was the only other person on board. It is reported that another person (a VIP) was expected to join Taran but canceled at the last minute. Some new sources claim that Taran had many enemies in Russia because his company, the Forex Club, had allegedly ripped off a lot of investors. So much so that the company had its license revoked in 2018. It is thus alleged that any number of these disgruntled investors could have been responsible for the crash. 

Moreover, according to the New York Post, Taran is one of many Russian billionaires who died under mysterious circumstances last year, signaling that the incident might have been more than an accident. 

Nikolai Mushegian

Nikolai Mushegian co-founded MakerDAO, the company that created the cryptocurrency Dai. He was known to be a visionary in the crypto world for his contributions to smart contract security. 

Mushegian passed away on October 28, 2022, in Puerto Rico. He had reportedly left his beachside property for a walk and was found dead in the ocean by a surfer. When his body was discovered, he still had his clothes on and was carrying his wallet. The series of events sounds pretty straightforward: he walked into the ocean, got carried away by the waves and then passed away. 

What makes people suspicious about the involvement of foul play is that on the day he passed away, he had tweeted, “CIA and Mossad and pedo elite are running some kind of sex trafficking entrapment blackmail ring out of Puerto Rico and Caribbean islands.” He had followed that tweet up with, “They are going to frame me with a laptop planted by my ex who was a spy. They will torture me to death.” 

Of the four people mentioned on this list, three were involved in some sort of illegal activity which explains why their deaths have sparked conspiracy theories. As far as Mushegian is concerned, he quite literally left a trail of conspiracies on Twitter for people to speculate over. Whether any of these deaths were actually pre-planned is yet to be revealed. But their stories tell us that not even the richest people in the world are immune to the clutches of death. 

Also read:

• Top 3 Stories of Lost Bitcoin Fortunes
• Are Crypto-Related Suicides a Real Problem?

Header image courtesy of Envato.