Two reports published on the same day by Journal du Coin echo each other. On one side, a British crypto trader says he was tied up and threatened with a knife at his home. On the other, the French gendarmerie has just trained investigators from 26 countries in Lille to trace funds on blockchains. Together, they shed light on “wrench attacks”, physical assaults aimed at forcing a crypto holder to hand over their keys.
What is known about the robbery in the United Kingdom
The reported facts rest mainly on the victim’s own statements. Known on X by the pseudonym “realist”, the trader posted a first message at around 3:10 a.m. (Paris time) on 13 October 2026, explaining that he had been taped up and held at knifepoint in his home. A quarter of an hour later, he added that his attackers were brandishing three knives and promising to kill him.
According to his tally, the haul includes $40,000 taken from his main wallets and $720,000 drained from one of his Ledgers, plus a Rolex; he puts the total at $800,000. The robbers then smashed his phone. He says he got away with a few bruises and states that the police are on site.
What has not been established is just as important: according to Journal du Coin, no British police force had commented on the case at the time of publication, and neither the city nor the identity of the victim is known. No arrests had been announced.
One element, however, can be verified on the blockchain. The trader published the Solana address of a wallet said to have received part of the funds. On the Solscan explorer, it is now flagged under the name “Fake_Phishing4516”. At around 3:20 a.m., 346 SOL left it in two transfers of 20 and 326 SOL, or about $37,000 at the day’s rate.
A recurring modus operandi
The expression “wrench attack” comes from a February 2009 strip of the webcomic xkcd: rather than breaking an encryption, a thief hits the holder with a $5 wrench until he gets the password. A hardware wallet such as a Ledger keeps private keys offline and shields funds from remote hackers, but, as the source points out, no device can withstand someone who forces its owner to type in their PIN code.
The United Kingdom has already seen a similar case. On 13 December 2025, three men in their twenties forced their way into a couple’s home in Solihull, in the West Midlands, and threatened the young woman, who was pregnant, with a knife until the couple transferred hundreds of thousands of pounds in crypto. A fourth accomplice was dictating instructions over video call. Crimestoppers is offering up to £10,000 for any information leading to a conviction; the perpetrators have not been arrested.
The available tallies point to an increase. The Gart.io website lists 27 attacks in the United Kingdom since the start of the year. The register kept by bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp counted around 70 physical assaults worldwide in 2025, compared with 41 in 2024; the previous record dated from 2021, with 36 cases.
In France, the National Anti-Organised Crime Prosecutor’s Office (Pnaco) has recorded 135 kidnappings or attempted kidnappings linked to crypto-assets since 2023: 18 cases in 2024, 67 in 2025 and 47 in the first four months of 2026. According to Cointelegraph, cited by Journal du Coin, the Interior Ministry counted 90 crypto-related cases between 1 January and mid-August 2026. The pattern described is consistent: perpetrators who are often very young, recruited online, and masterminds who stay far from the scene.
How investigators trace the funds
From 5 to 9 October 2026, the gendarmerie hosted its “Crypto Workshop” in Lille. Led by the crypto group of the National Cyber Unit (UNCyber) and co-organised by Europol with Denmark, it brought together representatives from 26 countries, including the United States, Australia, Norway, Slovenia, Hungary and the United Kingdom. For the first time, a magistrate took part, an American seconded to Eurojust, and the Metz branch was making its debut.
The principle of tracing is simple to explain. A blockchain such as Bitcoin’s is a public ledger in which every transfer remains recorded. Addresses do not carry names, but when funds arrive on a platform that verifies its customers’ identity, the trail can be connected back to a person. During a kidnapping, according to the gendarmerie, a group dedicated to crypto-assets follows the ransom in real time to try to freeze it while the intervention units prepare the release.
The limits are well known. Transaction mixers, bridges between blockchains and platforms beyond the reach of European judges offer ways around it. Above all, tracing comes after the crime. Judicial results do exist, however: in April, the Pnaco reported 88 people charged and 75 remanded in pre-trial detention, including more than ten minors among the suspects.
Caution without alarmism
The sources do not set out a list of protective measures. They do, however, point to one issue: the protection of holders’ personal data. The leak of Ledger’s customer database in 2020 showed that a postal address associated with the purchase of a wallet can turn a private individual into a target. On analysis, discretion about what one holds and about the information that makes it possible to link digital wealth to a home address seems the most direct lever, because technology alone does not protect against physical coercion.
It is also important to keep things in proportion: the figures cited amount to dozens of cases per year and per country, and the sources consulted contain no data on Switzerland.
