FBI Joins Investigation into Disappearance of Southern California Man Linked to Crypto Fortune

The FBI has joined the investigation into the disappearance of 74-year-old Naiping Hou, a resident of Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California. The agency has been working with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, which began investigating Hou's disappearance last year.

According to authorities, someone used Hou's cellphone to impersonate him for over a month, making extensive fraudulent transactions using his bank account. This was discovered after Wen Hou, Naiping's son and a well-known cryptocurrency investor, started receiving strange text messages from his father in April 2023.

Hou, who serves as the chief investment officer at Coincident Capital, had last seen his father in March 2023 on a family fishing trip. He became suspicious when his father began giving robotic responses in their family group chat and stopped visiting his grandchildren.