A Russian court has sentenced three individuals to five years in prison for a violent robbery targeting cryptocurrency holdings. The Omsk’s Leninsky District Court found the trio, aged between 21 and 23, guilty of breaking into a victim's apartment on April 10, 2024, threatening him with a knife, beating him, and demanding he hand over cash and crypto.
Prosecutors detailed that the attack was cut short when a neighbor, suspicious of noises, intervened, causing the assailants to flee empty-handed. The court ordered the defendants to serve their terms in maximum-security penal colonies and pay the victim over $5,000 in damages. This case is part of a broader trend in Russia, where courts are increasingly prosecuting such crimes, including a November case where attackers stole $171,000 in crypto from a blogger.
Simultaneously, a separate, high-profile incident underscores the escalating brutality targeting crypto holders globally. A cryptocurrency user known as "Silly Tuna" has alleged a violent assault resulted in the theft of approximately $24 million in digital assets. The victim claims attackers used axes and threats of kidnapping and sexual violence to force the transfer of funds.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield confirmed the theft, identifying it as an address poisoning attack that drained around $24 million worth of aEthUSDC from a victim-linked address. PeckShield reported that about $20 million in DAI from the exploit is currently sitting in two attacker-controlled staging wallets, with small portions already bridged to the Arbitrum network. The victim has offered a 10% bounty for the recovery of the funds.
Experts warn that 2026 is seeing an escalation in such "wrench attacks," with nearly a dozen violent incidents against crypto entrepreneurs and investors reported in January and February alone.
