On Wednesday, January 21^st, the Office of Judicial Investigations (Spanish initials: OIJ) began looking into the disappearance of Canadian businessman Ryan Craig Piercy, who is believed to have been taken hostage by captors demanding 272 million colones as ransom payment, which is more than $500K in today’s currency exchange rate.

Yesterday, daily tabloid Diario Extra reported that one of Mr. Piercy’s children has also gone missing in Costa Rica. Mr. Piercy’s adult son Alejandro, whose exact age is unknown. Alejandro is believed to be in his mid-20s, and his mother is a Costa Rican woman whose last name is Vargas. Mr. Piercy’s son has not contacted family or friends in more than three days, a fact that has OIJ agents, who are collaborating with Canadian law enforcement liaison officers in Costa Rica, scratching their heads.

A Bitcoin Ransom in Costa Rica

According to the news report filed by Manuel Estrada of Diario Extra, the 46-year old Mr. Piercy received a mysterious phone call at noon on the day before his disappearance was reported to the police. He drove his Nissan Tiida somewhere outside of San Jose; said vehicle was found abandoned in a coffee farm just outside of Santo Domingo in Heredia, a municipality not far from the heart of the Greater San Jose Metropolitan area.

There was a single piece of clothing, believed to belong to Mr. Piercy, left in the vehicle, which suggests that the alleged kidnappers either may have acted in haste and left a piece of clothing that may help K-9 officers to find Mr. Piercy’s whereabouts. Both the Nissan vehicle and the garment are now in the Forensic Sciences Laboratories of Costa Rica, which happen to be located very close to the spot where the vehicle was found.

According to Diario Extra, the group presumed to have taken Mr. Piercy hostage is demanding that the ransom payment be made in Bitcoin. This is another strange piece of the puzzle since the digital currency known as Bitcoin is very volatile and not as anonymous as many believe. The use of Bitcoin is not widespread in Costa Rica, and its heavy encryption makes it anonymous to a great extent; however, anyone with a modern Internet browser can track the chain of transfers and payments of Bitcoin, which is a feature that would normally turn off hostage takers.

Aside from the Bitcoin ransom and Alejandro’s disappearance, another oddity in this case is that Mr. Piercy does not have a valid DIMEX (residency card) in Costa Rica. According to Diario Extra, Mr. Piercy has resided in Costa Rica for about two decades, and two of his businesses are the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) and Casa Canada, which are dedicated to offer members assistance in their immigration dealings. Official document filings show that Mr. Piercy started the residency process in 2007, but the DIMEX has not yet been issued.

In the past, has quoted content from ARCR and published its press releases.