London court sends 'clear message' with guilty ruling for crypto kidnap gang

The five captors of two French cryptocurrency millionaires, who were held for more than two days in an east London flat, have been convicted at Inner London Crown Court. 

Violent physical attacks aimed at crypto holders have seen a recent increase worldwide. In this particular case, the captors were demanding a $150,000 ransom. 

How are crypto millionaires being targeted in wrench attacks?

Prosecuting barrister Heidi Stonecliffe KC stated that the victims may have attracted the criminals’ attention due to their publicly extravagant lifestyles.

Two French cryptocurrency millionaires, both in their 20s, were staying in Kensington when they were kidnapped and held for ransom.

The pair had reportedly just parked their rented black Mercedes in Shadwell when three masked men carrying a gun and a knife forced them back into the car and drove them to a flat in a block called Rathbone East in Canning Town.

The men were bound with tape and cable ties, beaten, and had socks stuffed in their mouths. Within the 52 hours of captivity, boiling water was poured over their bodies, and a cigarette was put out in one victim’s mouth. Both were threatened with having their genitals cut off unless they paid $150,000. They were also starved, and one victim claims he was made to drink toilet water.

The captors eventually received $30,000 in cryptocurrency and released one of the victims. The other was driven away in a separate vehicle and said in a recorded interview that he believed he had been “sold” to a second gang that would try to extract more money.

The Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad traced the gang’s location through a phone left behind in the Mercedes by a friend who was traveling with the two men and located where they were being held.

Officers chased a car carrying three of the defendants, Julius George, Isaac Bakoya and Adel Sineen, at speeds of up to 70mph through residential streets until it hit a lamppost, then caught them on foot.

A jury convicted two of the defendants of conspiracy to blackmail and false imprisonment, and three others of false imprisonment.

However, the person who allegedly directed the operation through instructions sent via WhatsApp and Snapchat, a man named Ibrahim Mohamed, known as “Nino” and saved as “Fatboy” in one defendant’s phone, has so far evaded capture.

One of the convicted men, Yasir Mohamed, who drove a victim to the flat, had prior convictions for drug dealing and knife possession.

Have wrench attacks become commonplace?

The blockchain security firm CertiK logged 34 confirmed wrench attacks in the first four months of 2026, a 41% rise on the same stretch of 2025, Cryptopolitan reported. France alone has recorded roughly 70 crypto-related kidnappings or extortion attempts since January 2026, with 88 people charged.

Several of these cases have been tied to a breach at the crypto tax platform Waltio that exposed data on about 50,000 users.

Cryptopolitan reported in May that four men were jailed for up to six and a half years at St Albans Crown Court for beating a City worker in Hertfordshire with a wrench and draining more than £10,000 from his accounts. 

A Moroccan court sentenced Mohamed Hamid Bajou to 25 years for masterminding a run of abductions in France, including the January 2025 kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland, whose attackers severed one of his fingers. 

In New York, prosecutors have charged two men, William Duplessie and John Woeltz, over the alleged three-week torture of an Italian tourist for his Bitcoin password.

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