A convicted Russian cryptocurrency fraudster and his wife watched each other being tortured to death in a desert in the United Arab Emirates after their kidnappers failed to extract £380 million from their accounts, it has been reported.

Roman Novak and his wife, Anna, were last seen on October 2 after being lured to the resort of Hatta, 80 miles outside of Dubai, by criminals posing as potential investors.

Police dug up a 500-by-500-metre stretch of desert in the Hajar mountains, near the border with Oman – where their mobile phones were last detected – to recover their remains more than a month later.

Since then, further details about the fate of the couple have been reported by Russian media.

Before their murders, Roman and Anna were tortured to force them to give up the access code

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