‘The wealth is digital, the violence is analog’: How the crypto rich got caught up in a new crime wave

It began like a scene from a Hollywood heist.

Dressed in painters’ overalls and high-vis vests, a group of men slipped into the stairwell of an apartment building in the Old Town of Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. Their target was Australian tech billionaire Tim Heath, a pioneer of crypto-based online gambling and founder of the Yolo Group. But this wasn’t a robbery – the men were there to take Heath.

According to Estonian prosecutors, the gang had stalked Heath for months, even planting a GPS tracker on his car. When they struck on July 29 last year – just days before the grand opening of Heath’s luxury casino complex – he fought back. Shaken but defiant, the strong-framed Heath escaped. The assailants fled, abandoning a getaway van later traced via a Bolt rental account.

His case is far from an anomaly – it’s part of a growing pattern of violent crime targeting crypto’s elite. Across Europe and beyond, crypto-related kidnappings are on the rise.

The incidents are co-ordinated, brutal and laser-focused on extracting digital wealth that is easy to move and potentially difficult to trace.

This month in Paris, three masked men ambushed the daughter of Pierre Noizat, chief executive of French exchange Paymium, in broad daylight. The attackers tried to shove her into a van but fled after a struggle. Though she escaped, the message was chillingly clear: prominent crypto families are now public targets.

Just weeks earlier, a 60-year-old crypto marketing firm owner was kidnapped by armed men in Paris. They cut off one of his fingers and demanded up to €6 million in ransom. He was rescued in a police raid south of the city.

In January, Ledger co-founder David Balland and his wife were abducted from their Paris home. Criminals mutilated Balland’s hand to force access to his wallets. They demanded €10 million. The couple was rescued after a multi-agency operation involving 200 officers.

These cases share a chilling pattern.

“These digital bearer assets are very, very easy to steal and transport – and very difficult to get back,” said Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief security officer of digital asset custody firm Casa. “The risk-reward is very different. You’re not robbing a bank or an armoured truck. You’re hitting soft targets with potentially massive payoffs.”

And most crypto holders, Lopp said, are far from protected. “It’s like these people are being their own banks, but they don’t have bank-level security.”

Lopp keeps a public database of violent attacks against crypto holders, and he suspects only a fraction ever get reported. “Maybe a quarter. Maybe a third. Definitely not the majority,” he said.

The issue isn’t isolated to France. There have been several in Sydney and Melbourne, including the 2023 kidnapping and torture of a man in a south-west Sydney home, where police say his teeth were removed. In Melbourne in the same year, a former childcare worker and TikTok star also lured a Saudi Arabian prince into a Bitcoin-ransom kidnapping.

In November last year, three teenagers in Las Vegas abducted a man after a crypto event, took him in to the surrounding desert and drained $US6.2 million from his wallets. In one of last year’s most complex cases, teenage hackers who stole $US356.5 million in Bitcoin from a Washington state victim turned on one of their own. They kidnapped the teen’s parents in Connecticut, but were caught after an off-duty FBI agent witnessed the abduction.

Criminals are also thinking globally. “There was one gang that hit half a dozen targets up and down the US East Coast,” Lopp said. “And I’ve seen patterns of Chinese organised crime hitting Chinese citizens abroad, or Russians targeting Russians in South-East Asia.”

The logic is simple and disturbing: “If we actually commit the crime outside of the country and then run back, we don’t have to worry about law enforcement,” Lopp said.

Despite the growing severity, the response from authorities remains limited. “No law enforcement agency actually has the resources to protect people in real time,” Lopp said bluntly. “Law enforcement is reactive – it’s not built for prevention.”

In France, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is promising new protections for crypto professionals, including fast-track access to emergency services, in-home safety checks and specialised training for officers.

“These repeated kidnappings must be countered with specific tools,” he said. But crypto leaders like Noizat are sceptical, calling the government’s moves little more than “a communications operation”.

What’s at stake is more than just digital coins.

“Millions of dollars are being secured by just one piece of information – that’s extremely risky,” Lopp said. Once stolen, crypto can vanish instantly. “Bitcoin is like Teflon – it’s slippery. Once it’s gone, you can’t grab it again.”

‘It’s like these people are being their own banks, but they don’t have bank-level security.’

Jameson Lopp, co-founder of digital asset custody firm Casa

Casa, Lopp’s firm, helps clients protect assets using geographically distributed keys and multi-signature storage. “Some of our clients literally have to get on planes to different countries just to sign off on a transaction,” he said.

But while security technology evolves, attackers are getting smarter. “A lot of these attackers still don’t know how to launder the proceeds,” Lopp said. “But that will change.”

But crypto expert Carol Alexander, a professor at the University of Sussex, said the kidnappers aren’t very clever.

“It used to be the dark web and the Silk Road – and Bitcoin was used for money laundering,” Alexander said. “But nowadays, the FBI and the Department of Justice … the forensic software you can use to trace them is so good, the kidnappers would likely be very quickly found out.”

Despite the sophistication of the digital tools available to law enforcement, Alexander points out that the crypto space is still an appealing target for criminals.

“Very few crypto owners have the level of physical security that traditional billionaires might have. These people are flashing their wealth online and making themselves visible, but they aren’t aware of how much they’re at risk,” she said.

For now, most victims survive. But the violence is real, and rising. Lopp himself became a target in 2017 after a swatting and extortion attempt led to armed officers raiding his home. “That’s when I started paying attention,” he said.

What’s clear is that the frontier ethos of crypto – self-custody, decentralisation, anonymity – is also its greatest vulnerability. And as more wealth moves off the grid, criminals are adapting faster than law enforcement.

“The social pressure is just now starting to bubble up,” Lopp said. “But we’re years behind. And these attackers? They’re already here.”

Henry Rivers, a cybersecurity investor, said criminals are exploiting the decentralised nature of crypto to target high-profile executives.

“Their wealth is visible but largely untraceable, which makes them ideal targets,” Rivers said.

“The industry needs robust solutions to protect both its digital and physical assets. This is no longer just about securing wallets – it’s about securing lives.”

In response to these growing threats, some crypto firms are reassessing public exposure. Travel warnings are now issued, and executives are advised to adopt extreme discretion in their personal and professional lives.

In Tallinn, the investigation into Heath’s attackers continues. Heath, 46, who has not spoken about his order and declined to comment for this story, has since left Estonia and is now suing his attackers for more than €3.2 million in damages to help pay for his full-time security.

Two men – both Azerbaijani nationals – will face court next month for trial. Another two remain at large.

For the cryptocurrency industry, the growing threat of real-world violence is now a harsh reality, one that could redefine the very nature of digital wealth and its security.

“The wealth is digital,” said a Paris police investigator this month. “But the violence is very much analog.”

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