Arrest Made in Murder of Crypto Startup Exec: Reports
Bob Lee, who had also worked at Square and other Silicon Valley ventures, was killed on April 4.
An arrest has been made in last week’s murder in San Francisco of Bob Lee, chief product officer of crypto startup MobileCoin Inc. and a well-known figure in Silicon Valley, according to a local news report.
The San Francisco Police Department made an arrest early this morning in the nearby city of Emeryville in the April 4 stabbing of Lee, and the suspect also works in technology and is a man Lee allegedly knew, Mission Local reported, without identifying its source. information.
Representatives for the police department and the city’s district attorney declined to comment on the news reports. The police department scheduled a press conference at 12:30 p.m. local time to provide an update on the homicide investigation.
Lee’s brother, Tim Oliver Lee, thanked police for “bringing this person to justice so quickly” in a social media post, as did San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the district where Lee was killed.
I am grateful for @SFPD‘s Killing Detail and all the officers from @SFPDSouthern and elsewhere for their tireless work in bringing Bob Lee’s killer to justice and for the arrest of a suspect this morning. (1/2)
— Matt Dorsey (@mattdorsey) 13 April 2023
Lee died after being stabbed multiple times in the middle of the night in a deserted area of downtown San Francisco, in what the city’s district attorney called a “senseless act of violence.”
The police department said officers found a 43-year-old man with stab wounds after responding to a call at 2:35 a.m., and the person later died at the hospital.
Lee was the first chief technology officer of Square, the startup co-founded by Jack Dorsey and now called Block Inc.
While at the company, he created CashApp, a money transfer tool that allows users to buy stocks and Bitcoin. Earlier in his career, he helped develop Android while working as a software engineer for Google.
The fatal attack of a high-profile executive in a downtown neighborhood near the city’s financial district came as a blow to efforts by city officials to reverse the narrative of San Francisco as a crime-ridden city.
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