An attacker violently robbed a Tel Aviv resident of almost $600,000 value of cryptocurrencies in his house.
The sufferer was sure and tortured till he surrendered the passwords to his digital wallets. The perpetrator has since been arrested and charged with the crime.
Violent Crypto Theft Shocks Israel
Israel skilled one in every of its most violent crypto-related crimes final month after three suspects adopted a person house, sure him, and tortured him till he surrendered his Bitcoin, stablecoins, and crypto wallets.
Murad Mahajna, a Tel Aviv resident and the principle suspect, allegedly deliberate to rob a Herzliya resident after studying the sufferer owned Bitcoin. In line with reviews, on September 7, Mahajna and two different suspects waited on the entrance of the sufferer’s house.
When the sufferer arrived, the three pressured him inside. The fees state that when inside, they tied his arms behind his again with a cable and beat him. When the sufferer refused to open his digital wallets, one of many attackers allegedly stabbed him twice.
At that second, the sufferer surrendered his belongings. In line with reviews, the robbers stole a major quantity of cryptocurrency, totaling $547,260 in Bitcoin and about $42,248 in USDT.
Additionally they took a Rolex watch valued at roughly $50,000, a Trezor crypto pockets, a laptop computer, about €5,000 in Euros, and several other thousand shekels in money.
Mahajna was arrested three days later.
Wrench Assaults Rise with Bitcoin Costs
With a number of incidents recorded, 2025 has change into the worst 12 months for cryptocurrency theft.
A latest Chainalysis report revealed that by mid-2025, the quantity of cryptocurrency stolen year-to-date was 17% increased than the full stolen throughout 2022, which was beforehand the worst 12 months on document. Analysts undertaking that if present charges persist, whole stolen funds might high $4 billion by the top of the 12 months.
The report famous a regarding pattern: private pockets compromises are actually a rising supply of theft. This means that attackers are more and more specializing in particular person customers.
Violent crypto-related assaults are on the rise. Supply: Chainalysis.
Knowledge additionally means that “wrench assaults”—the place bodily violence or threats power crypto holders to give up funds—correlate with Bitcoin’s worth actions. The pattern implies that attackers goal people during times of excessive asset worth.
Though violent assaults of this nature are comparatively unusual, the truth that they contain bodily hurt, together with extreme harm, abduction, and dying, considerably will increase the human value and severity of those incidents.
Learn authentic story Kidnapped For Keys: Inside Israel’s Brutal $600,000 Bitcoin Torture Plot by Camila Grigera Naón at beincrypto.com
