Cryptocurrency investors say attackers stole $24 million in violent robbery

The victims offered a 10% reward for the recovered funds and asked the exchange and law enforcement authorities for help tracing the money transfers.

A crypto holder known online as Sirituna said on March 5 that attackers stole around $24 million worth of tokens after threatening him with violence during a real-world heist.

This incident has renewed concerns about so-called “wrench attacks.” This is a form of crime in which the perpetrator uses physical threats to force the victim to hand over control of the cryptocurrency wallet, rather than attempting to hack it.

Victims speak of violent coercion

Sirituna said in several posts on X that armed assailants were involved in the theft and that he feared severe violence if control of the property was not transferred. He wrote that the group had used weapons and made threats of kidnapping and sexual assault, adding that British police were already involved.

“$24 million Australian dollars stolen from 0x6fe0fab2164d8e0d03ad6a628e2af78624060322. Included threats of violence, weapons, kidnapping and rape. Police were clearly involved,” he tweeted.

Blockchain analytics platforms soon began tracking the movement of stolen assets, and Arkham shared data showing that the attackers took approximately $23.6 million in aEthUSDC linked to addresses associated with Sillytuna.

The company’s analysis found that most of the funds were quickly converted into other tokens and distributed across multiple wallets. Approximately $20 million was exchanged into DAI and placed in two Ethereum addresses. The attackers also bridged smaller portions of the funds to other networks.

Approximately $2.48 million was transferred to the Arbitrum network, with the funds routed through multiple Wagyu accounts. These accounts were used to purchase Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that makes tracking transactions significantly more difficult.

Arkam also reported that approximately $1.1 million was moved to the Bitcoin network through the bridge service, with some of it potentially going to the mixing service.

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Security firm PecShield initially described the incident as a possible address poisoning attack, but Sirituna rejected that explanation, insisting that the funds were stolen through direct physical intimidation rather than wallet abuse.

The victim offered a 10% reward on the recovered funds, even if the perpetrator himself returned the money. Additionally, he called on exchanges and blockchain investigators to help block and track transfers.

Community tracking efforts

Shortly after Sillytuna shared his ordeal, members of the cryptocurrency community began a detailed investigation into the transactions, with security researcher Tay Vano flagging multiple addresses involved in the theft and confirming that Wagyu was being used to launder funds into the privacy coin Monero.

Wagyu’s developer, PerpetualCow, later responded, saying the platform does not freeze users’ funds as a matter of policy. However, they claimed that they were asleep when the transfer took place, although they would have stopped the transaction from happening in the first place.

Nevertheless, they noted that compliance systems ultimately flagged the suspicious transactions and prevented additional transfers from taking place.

While some members of the community were focused on tracking down the stolen funds, others reacted in different ways. For example, a group within the Solana ecosystem launched a meme token linked to the Sillytuna name and said transaction fees would be used to offset losses.

Sillytuna’s incident is not an isolated incident, but part of a documented increase in wrench attacks. A better-known incident was the January 2025 kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland from his home in France, where his attackers cut off one of his fingers to pressure a colleague to pay the ransom.

In another case, a U.S. resident visiting London was tricked into smoking scopolamine-laced cigarettes and drugged, resulting in the loss of approximately $122,000 in cryptocurrency.