Police arrest two suspects in cryptocurrency extortion and murder case

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Police arrest two suspects for murdering student after cryptocurrency theft Original Link: The Vienna police arrested two Ukrainians suspected of torturing and then killing a 21-year-old student. The student’s charred body was found in his Mercedes car. This violent incident resulted in the victim’s cryptocurrency wallet being emptied.

According to local reports, the victim was a student, Danylo K., whose father is the deputy mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Police said the body was discovered on the morning of November 26, after flames and smoke triggered fire alarms in a nearby residential area.

Police announced that a 19-year-old and a 45-year-old suspect were detained on Saturday after they crossed the border into Ukraine three days earlier to escape.

Although the motive for the crime remains uncertain, withdrawal records were detected from the victim’s cryptocurrency wallet, making financial gain a possible motive, according to police. The suspects will not be extradited as the case has been handed over to Ukrainian authorities at their request.

Local reports indicate the attack began in the parking lot of the Sofitel hotel, where the younger suspect ambushed the student’s classmate, forced him into his own Mercedes, and then took him to the Donaustadt district, where he was killed.

“The fire investigation determined that gasoline was used to start the fire inside the car,” police said. “Investigators found a melted container on the back seat.”

Attacks targeting cryptocurrency investors

The Vienna murder comes amid a rise in physical attacks on cryptocurrency holders, commonly known as “wrench attacks.”

Jameson Lopp, co-founder and Chief Security Officer of a security platform, maintains a database tracking wrench attacks, recording nearly 70 attacks this year, with over 30% occurring in Europe.

Last weekend, in San Francisco, a man posing as a delivery person kidnapped a resident and forced them to hand over $11 million in cryptocurrency.

Earlier this month in Canada, court records detailed a 2024 home invasion in which a family was tortured, and the attackers stole $1.6 million in Bitcoin.

In some regions, this pattern has turned deadly. Last month, Russian crypto promoter Roman Novak and his wife were murdered in the UAE after meeting a man posing as an investor, who demanded access to their digital wallets.

“Europe presents a combination of factors: relatively dense urban environments, strong crypto adoption in certain corridors, and highly capable organized crime groups experienced in armed robbery, extortion, and kidnapping, historically associated with drugs and money,” a global policy and government affairs head told the media.

“Crypto extortion logically fits their existing toolkit,” he added.

As digital theft becomes more difficult due to multisig, hardware wallets, operational security, and tighter controls at exchanges, “criminals may increasingly resort to coercion rather than hacking.”

“This doesn’t mean wrench attacks will become widespread, but as long as crypto represents highly liquid and borderless value, physical targeting will continue to be an attractive alternative.”