Violent “wrench attacks” against crypto holders have already extracted more than $30 million in 2026, with France emerging as a hotspot.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that violent criminals have extracted more than $30 million from crypto holders through mid-2026 via home invasions, kidnappings, and hostage situations, sometimes called “wrench attacks.”
Home invasions have grown from 26% of documented incidents in 2023 to 37% in 2026, while kidnappings, which remain the majority attack type, have grown from 39% to 52% over the same period.
France has become the leading hotspot, logging 30 publicly known incidents through mid-2026 after recording just 19 in all of 2025 and only a handful before that; Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said in late June that authorities had documented over 70 crypto-related violent incidents and announced plans for a rapid identification and alert system for at-risk figures.
Chainalysis links the surge to a 2024 data breach in which a French tax official is alleged to have stolen and sold dossiers on high-net-worth crypto holders, compounded by a separate breach disclosed by tax-reporting firm Waltio affecting roughly 50,000 users. French authorities are prosecuting the wave through JUNALCO, the country’s organised-crime jurisdiction, with around 200 arrests and 88 indictments recorded by mid-2026.
On-chain analysis of stolen funds reveals a spectrum of attacker sophistication, from unsophisticated actors who move funds directly to centralised exchanges with no obfuscation, to mid-tier attackers using decentralised exchanges and cross-chain bridges, to criminally embedded actors whose funds have flowed through laundering services linked to cartel networks and terrorist financing clusters.
Chainalysis notes that attacks increasingly target victims’ family members, now roughly 25-30% of cases globally and over 40% within France, and says tools like its Wallet Scan and Rapid products can help frontline law enforcement officers assess whether cryptocurrency is relevant to a case.
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