A quiet home in northern France became the scene of a violent crypto robbery early Sunday, when four masked men broke in, restrained a family and forced the father to hand over €40,000 in digital assets.
The case adds another entry to France’s fast growing list of crypto wrench attacks, a form of physical extortion in which criminals target people believed to have access to cryptocurrency and force them to surrender it.
The attack happened around 4 a.m. in Vendin-le-Vieil, according to BFMTV. The four men entered the house and held a 40-year-old father, his partner and their two children, aged eight and twelve, for more than three hours.
Police said the family members were bound with black tape. The attackers searched the property before separating the father from the rest of the family and assaulting him.
They forced him to provide his identification details and access codes, according to a police source cited by France Télévisions. His 12-year-old daughter was also struck in the face with car keys, according to a source close to the investigation.
The attackers eventually escaped with around €40,000, or roughly $46,000, in crypto. The family managed to free themselves before firefighters arrived at around 7 a.m.
The victims were described by prosecutors as being in shock and were sent for forensic medical examinations. A victim support association was also assigned to the family.
Why crypto wrench attacks are spreading in France
The Béthune prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into kidnapping and extortion by an organized gang. The case has been assigned to regional judicial police alongside France’s anti-cybercrime office, while all four suspects remain at large.
What makes the incident particularly striking is the profile of the victim.
Rather than targeting someone publicly associated with a massive crypto fortune, the attackers went after a salaried IT specialist working in the digital currency sector. The amount stolen was also relatively modest compared with some of the larger cases that have made headlines.
France has nevertheless emerged as the country most affected by crypto wrench attacks. According to the national anti-organized crime prosecutor’s office, more than 70 crypto-linked kidnappings and unlawful detentions were recorded during the first eight months of 2026.
Earlier this year, authorities also charged 88 people in a crackdown on related crimes, with some of those charged being minors.
The recent case follows a string of attacks involving people with more visible connections to the crypto industry. Targets have included the father of a crypto millionaire, whose finger was severed during an assault, the wife of a Sandbox co-founder and the chief executive of Binance France.
The latest attack points to a broader concern: physical access to cryptocurrency can become a target even when the person holding it is not a high-profile millionaire.
Crypto wrench attacks also illustrate a different side of digital-asset security. Wallets, passwords and private credentials are usually discussed as matters of cybersecurity, but those protections become far less straightforward when criminals can use physical violence to obtain the information needed to access funds.
The scale of the problem extends beyond France. Chainalysis estimated that roughly $30 million was stolen through wrench attacks globally during 2026. CertiK put the losses at $124 million in the first six months of the year, a twelvefold increase.
Those figures differ substantially, but both point to the same development: attacks aimed at extracting crypto through physical coercion are becoming more financially significant.
For the French family in Vendin-le-Vieil, that trend arrived at the front door. The investigation is ongoing, and the suspects had not been arrested at the time of the report.