In brief
- A 21-year-old man allegedly detonated two Airsoft grenades and ignited a smoke bomb at a St. Petersburg cryptocurrency exchange on Saturday.
- Police reportedly arrested the suspect after he demanded that employees transfer all available crypto to his digital wallet.
- The incident comes amid a global surge in violent “wrench attacks,” including kidnappings, torture cases, and multimillion-dollar crypto robberies.
A Russian man has been arrested after reportedly storming a St. Petersburg-based crypto exchange armed with weapons to rob the platform.
According to a local media report, the 21-year-old man reportedly entered the exchange office located in an apartment hotel on Khersonska Street on Saturday, detonated two Airsoft grenades, and set off a smoke bomb before ordering staff to transfer all the available crypto to his wallet.
Experts who inspected the blast remnants said the suspect had used Airsoft imitation grenades, which create commotion without real destructive force.
Patrol police and security detained the suspect, seized two Airsoft grenades, and now regional authorities are weighing preventive measures as he faces serious robbery charges, the report says.
Crypto violence surges
The botched heist comes amid a troubling global trend of violent attacks targeting crypto holders, known as “wrench attacks” in the industry.
“We expect it to get worse through 2026 unless privacy tools and global law enforcement coordination scale fast,” David Richards, CEO of analytics firm BlockchainUnmasked, previously told Decrypt.
Recent attacks have turned deadly; earlier this month, convicted Russian crypto scammer Roman Novak and his wife Anna were murdered in the UAE after men posing as investors demanded access to his crypto wallets.
Last Saturday, a San Francisco homeowner lost $11 million in crypto after a fake delivery driver restrained him with duct tape and forced him to hand over wallet credentials.
“The victim reported that he was physically restrained by the suspect and incurred financial loss,” SFPD Public Information Officer Paulina Henderson told Decrypt, adding that no arrests have been made in the “active and open investigation.”
Meanwhile, in British Columbia, a family endured waterboarding and sexual assault during an April 2024 home invasion that netted attackers $1.6 million in Bitcoin.
A sentencing decision in the Provincial Court revealed assailants had bound the victims and threatened to cut off the husband’s genitals while demanding access to their crypto.
Cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek previously told Decrypt that investigators typically pursue multiple angles simultaneously when responding to crypto attacks.
“The hard truth is that identifying the suspects is usually far more achievable than recovering the stolen crypto,” he said.
The experts advise crypto holders to avoid posting about holdings on social media and implement multi-factor authentication to reduce their risk of becoming targets.
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