UK independent charity Crimestoppers has announced a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction after a violent cryptocurrency home invasion in Solihull, near Birmingham. The appeal was published on Wednesday, more than nine months after the attack.
West Midlands Police said the couple returned to their house in Smith's Wood, on the eastern edge of Birmingham, at around 5:20pm on Saturday, 13 December 2025. As they opened the front door, three men got out of a parked car and pushed in behind them. The husband was assaulted and suffered significant injuries, while his wife, who was pregnant with the couple's third child, was threatened with a knife. The pair were forced to transfer a large sum of cryptocurrency to a wallet controlled by the attackers.
The robbers also stole several high-value watches before fleeing in what is believed to be a black BMW X3. A fourth person, who was not in the house, relayed instructions to the attackers over a video call. Detectives believe the raid was planned and targeted. All four suspects are thought to be in their twenties. They wore hoods and face coverings, with the only detailed description being a Black man with a small diagonal scar beneath his left eyebrow.
Alan Edwards, Crimestoppers' regional manager for the West Midlands, said: "Four people planned this and four people know exactly what happened that evening." He urged anyone who was told about the attack afterwards, noticed someone suddenly flush with money, or saw the BMW nearby to contact the charity anonymously. Crimestoppers stressed that callers are never identified, IP addresses are not traced, and tipsters are not asked to appear in court.
The case reflects a broader shift in physical attacks on crypto holders. According to security firm CertiK, home invasions became the dominant form of crypto wrench attack in the first half of 2026, rising to 20 cases, about 41% of all incidents, from one publicly reported case a year earlier. CertiK verified 52 wrench attacks in total, with recorded exposure of $124.1 million. It also described an increasingly layered structure in which organizers who buy data and coordinate logistics sit above those who carry out attacks, a pattern that appears to match the fourth person directing the Solihull robbers remotely.
Europe accounted for three quarters of the cases CertiK verified, with France the epicentre of the wave, recording 33 incidents in the first half of 2026. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said France had 77 crypto-linked kidnapping, detention and extortion cases or attempts by the end of June, compared with 45 for the whole of 2025. Just days before the Solihull appeal, prosecutors opened an organized-extortion case after a family near Lens was bound and the father forced to transfer €40,000 in crypto.
