Crypto ‘wrench attacks’ surge as thieves use violence to steal digital assets

Early one morning in November, a man posing as a delivery driver rang the buzzer at a home in San Francisco’s Mission District.

However, this person had come with seriously bad intentions, police said, as he pulled a gun, tied up one of the residents with duct tape, and stole $11 million worth of Ethereum and Bitcoin. 

Law enforcement officials reportedly believe the robbery was a targeted hit by an organized crime group. 

The attacker beat the victim while holding up a phone on loudspeaker as “foreign voices” on the line repeated personal information about him. The thief then poured liquid over the victim before emptying his crypto wallets over the course of around 90 minutes.

Two months earlier, on Sept. 25, federal officials said that two Texas brothers had been charged with kidnapping for allegedly holding a Minnesota family hostage and stealing $8 million in cryptocurrency.

Raymond Christian Garcia and Isiah Angelo Garcia, wielding an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun, zip-tied their victims, officials said, as they demanded that large amounts of cryptocurrency be transferred into a cryptocurrency wallet.

During the incident, Isiah Garcia allegedly drove one victim to a family cabin to retrieve a hard drive-style cryptocurrency wallet.

Wrench attacks are increasing, officials say

The victim’s son managed to call 911, prompting such a massive law enforcement response that Mahtomedi Public Schools canceled its homecoming football game due to the ongoing activity near the campus.

“A violent kidnapping that stole $8 million and silenced a homecoming game is not just a crime,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said in a statement.  “It is a blow to the sense of safety of everyone in Minnesota. This is not normal.”  

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Violent cryptocurrency robberies may not be normal, but industry analysts say they are increasing. 

Cryptocurrency ripoffs have been around almost as long crypto as itself, and they exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic as social media became a primary tool for promoters of fake investments and romance scams

These crimes tended to be online ripoffs and reports from late 2025 and early 2026 point to a significant, likely record-setting, surge in cryptocurrency scams and theft.

Physical attacks are increasing as well, and 2025 is on track to have twice as many such assaults as the previous year, the consulting firm WTW said in a report, with “multiple kidnap and ransom (K&R) incidents, which have targeted senior figures in the cryptocurrency industry across Asia, Europe and North America.”

These crimes are called “wrench attacks,” a term that is said to have stemmed from a comedian who joked that “instead of hacking the encryption, just hit them with a $5 wrench until they give up the password.”

“The increase in security by online crypto trading services may be a factor that’s led to the increase in the trend of malicious actors targeting individual wallet holders instead, employing violence and coercion,” WTW said.

 The firm added that the appreciation in digital assets like Bitcoin and the ease and decentralized nature of transferring cryptocurrency come with a higher risk of physical attacks.

Small crypto holders also targeted

“It’s becoming increasingly paramount to assess your exposure to physical extortion, coercion and limit public visibility of crypto wealth through personal security and wallet access controls,” the report said.

Ari Redbord, the global head of policy and government affairs at crypto analytics firm TRM Labs, said 2025 was a record year for wrench attacks—with roughly 60 reported physical assaults on crypto holders, according to the crypto news site The Block.

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“The true number is likely significantly higher,” Redbord noted. “Many incidents are logged simply as robberies or burglaries, with the crypto element omitted, while others are never reported due to victim hesitation or uncertainty about how law enforcement will handle crypto-related crimes.”

And it’s not just ultra-rich crypto holders who are being targeted. A Bloomberg Businessweek investigation found that victims now include children, teachers, a construction worker, and a fireman.

A report by the risk management and security firm Solace Global said many of these wrench attacks are taking place in countries that are generally considered low-risk for kidnapping and have robust law enforcement capabilities, such as Western Europe, the US, and Canada. 

“This further illustrates the risks criminal organizations are willing to take to secure such valuable and easily movable digital assets,” the report said.

The firm said that wrench attacks and the use of violence to obtain crypto holdings illegally are highly likely to increase in the medium term. 

Wrench attacks on smaller crypto holders will probably further increase with crypto adoption and the expansion of crypto physical infrastructure, such as crypto ATMs, in-person exchange offices, and payment terminals.

In fact, the FBI said fraudsters bilked Americans out of more than $333 million in 2025 with ruses perpetrated using bitcoin ATM machines, ABC News reported.

“As law enforcement adapts and regulation grows, criminal groups operating in safer jurisdictions are likely to increase the outsourcing of violence to local street gangs or proxy groups,” Solace Group said.

“With this likely comes an increased risk of violence, with proxy groups typically less professional, more unpredictable, and more prone to excessive force.”

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