French Couple's Nightmare: 3 Invasions After Buying Crypto House

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

A couple in France's Somme department was targeted in three home invasions in less than a month after buying a former crypto millionaire's house. According to ChainCatcher, criminals had obtained the previous owner's tax details and address from the dark web and mistakenly believed the new residents held about 1 million euros in crypto assets.

The first intruder was driven off by the family's dog, while the second attack involved the residents being subdued and the assault being livestreamed on Snapchat before the attackers fled after realizing they had the wrong target. A third attempt was stopped by an alarm system. An Amiens criminal court later convicted two men, aged 20 and 21, for involvement in the third invasion and sentenced them to three years and 18 months in prison.

https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/08-12-2026-french-couple-faces-three-home-invasions-after-buying-crypto-millionaire-s-former-house-354954545678417

This could be one of the dangers of buying a house own previously by a crypto person. As we all know that France is notoriously known for it's data leak, criminals who has in their possession the house and the address of crypto holders.

But for safety or whatever reasons, they've sold their houses and the new buyer is not aware that the owner is on the radar of this criminals because they have obtained their data. And so the new owners should know the risk specially buying from a crypto millionaire.

Also for the crypto owners that have sold their house, they are still not safe, because the data might have contained their real names and identities.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Wrench attacks are more common in France, and if you are into Bitcoin and are located in this country, take your time to maintain privacy and avoid any public appearance that identifies you with what you do as a Bitcoin user.

Don't risk coming to the public to appear by what you do or allow people to track you by your location and have access to some of you private information, in France today, scammer do not have to go a long way using the conventional hacking strategy any longer because it take much time and efforts, they will only make a physical appearance an attack any suspected bitcoin holder using rench attack.

[Catenaccio]

Wrench attacks are more common in France, and if you are into Bitcoin and are located in this country, take your time to maintain privacy and avoid any public appearance that identifies you with what you do as a Bitcoin user.

Don't risk coming to the public to appear by what you do or allow people to track you by your location and have access to some of you private information, in France today, scammer do not have to go a long way using the conventional hacking strategy any longer because it take much time and efforts, they will only make a physical appearance an attack any suspected bitcoin holder using rench attack.

France have problems in their society as consequence of their immigration policies over recent decades but I don't know France is a nation with most cases of wrench attacks reported. I need to check data on reports about such attacks to verify your information.

Database of Physical Attacks Against Crypto Holders.
https://stats.gart.io/

There are 378 reported attacks in 58 countries and you are right about that but I'm not sure you said that based on data or just your own thinking, France has 64 cases while the USA has 63 cases. They are two top countries with highest reported cases so far.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

France is a place that has recorded the highest wrench attacks in such a short period(about 30 only in mid 2026). This couple are lucky, none of the attacks were successful. It is a funny story from what I read about it

- First attack foiled by the dog
- Second attack foiled by a neighbor live streaming the incident
- Third attack foiled by the alarm system

Two suspects have been sent to prison for the role they played in the third attack. There may be more, they just need to be very careful.
The attacks were not as a result of their lack of privacy, just the data leaks from the tax records of a millionaire into the dark web pointing them to the wrong address since the property was previously owned by the millionaire.

This topic actually fits Begineers and Help. It has nothing to do with bitcoin actually.

[buwaytress]

Probably same nightmare if any kind of showoff lived in the house. Less to do with it belonging to a crypto guy, more to do with it belonging to a tryhard.

France is a place that has recorded the highest wrench attacks in such a short period(about 30 only in mid 2026). This couple are lucky, none of the attacks were successful. It is a funny story from what I read about it

I'm actually surprised. And if that's just what's reported, and if I were a cycle younger, would probably look into it. Thought Bitcoin wasn't the rage any longer.

[Die_empty]

Also for the crypto owners that have sold their house, they are still not safe, because the data might have contained their real names and identities.

This means that before buying a house, there is a need to do a proper check on the past owners. This would help you know how to set up the house. Having extra security has become essential in some countries. I also thought the change of ownership of a property should be updated fast.

France have problems in their society as consequence of their immigration policies over recent decades but I don't know France is a nation with most cases of wrench attacks reported. I need to check data on reports about such attacks to verify your information.

The excuse that France is suffering from a high crime rate is becoming outdated. France is not the only country that has a high number of immigrants. The increase in crime is an indication of the government's failure to tackle it. I guess that those people selling tax and other information might not be immigrants. It is embarrassing to see crypto users becoming targets of criminals in France.

[Frankolala]

Who knows if the former owner of the house sold it because he knew that he's not safe in that house. They might have attacked him before he sold the house. Investors forget that crypto is money and you need to keep all your crypto dealings as a secret to prevent wrench attack. Physical attack is more dangerous than online attack because you might lose your life in the process.

[tbct_mt2]

Who knows if the former owner of the house sold it because he knew that he's not safe in that house. They might have attacked him before he sold the house. Investors forget that crypto is money and you need to keep all your crypto dealings as a secret to prevent wrench attack. Physical attack is more dangerous than online attack because you might lose your life in the process.

With online attacks, you can lose your money, lose your documents, identity, privacy, but you will be still alive. With physical attacks, you will not only lose your money but even lose your life. Because it is very dangerous for your life safety physically, it's best and safest to prevent physical attacks proactively.

The best way for preventing it, avoiding it is don't make noise, don't attract attention online and offline, and never let anyone knowing that you are an investor with Bitcoin and / or cryptocurrency. Also never show off your wealth because it only plays as hook to greedy but brutal people who might lose their control and attacks you physically to death.

How to protect your bitcoin from $5 wrench attacks.
The bitcoiner’s guide to physical security.

[C10H15N]

Fortunately, I live in a country where law abiding citizens have the right to own firearms.  Home invading perpetrators have a high probability of becoming perforated.   

[Tamaperdana]

A couple in France's Somme department was targeted in three home invasions in less than a month after buying a former crypto millionaire's house. According to ChainCatcher, criminals had obtained the previous owner's tax details and address from the dark web and mistakenly believed the new residents held about 1 million euros in crypto assets.

The first intruder was driven off by the family's dog, while the second attack involved the residents being subdued and the assault being livestreamed on Snapchat before the attackers fled after realizing they had the wrong target. A third attempt was stopped by an alarm system. An Amiens criminal court later convicted two men, aged 20 and 21, for involvement in the third invasion and sentenced them to three years and 18 months in prison.

https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/08-12-2026-french-couple-faces-three-home-invasions-after-buying-crypto-millionaire-s-former-house-354954545678417

Snip

This is truly terrifying, because if, for example, we have wealth stored in assets like cryptocurrency and criminals find out about it, it would definitely be very unsettling. Especially since incidents like this have already happened that would certainly add to the tension. But fortunately, in the country where I live, there haven’t been any incidents like this in fact, most people here don’t even know what cryptocurrency or Bitcoin is. So, yes, for now, I think I’m perfectly safe.

Also, after doing some research, I found that the root cause of all these crypto-related crimes is clearly the KYC system. Because with the leak of that data, everyone in France who owns crypto is clearly not safe right now. So this issue should be addressed immediately, because right now there are clearly a huge number of crypto  related robberies happening there. And that’s exactly why I’m really afraid of going through KYC the risks are truly enormous.

[LogitechMouse]

---
This could be one of the dangers of buying a house own previously by a crypto person. As we all know that France is notoriously known for it's data leak, criminals who has in their possession the house and the address of crypto holders.

But for safety or whatever reasons, they've sold their houses and the new buyer is not aware that the owner is on the radar of this criminals because they have obtained their data. And so the new owners should know the risk specially buying from a crypto millionaire.

Also for the crypto owners that have sold their house, they are still not safe, because the data might have contained their real names and identities.

Can we say right now that the terms "France and Bitcoin" are connected to each other? In a negative way though because we've seen lots of these kinds of attacks, and majority of them are from France. I wonder what the authorities are doing though to prevent these types of attacks or at least lessen it.

There's no safe in France, and as long as you shared to the public that you're into crypto, you're in danger already. I guess I can say that I'm much safer because I'm not telling to anybody that I'm into crypto, and there isn't any incidents of 5$ crypto-related wrench attack here in our country. There are many threads regarding how to prevent ourselves from being a victim of these wrench attacks, but for those who are lazy to read it, just remain silent when it comes to your crypto assets. You will not benefit from bragging or telling it to anybody, but it might just cause you trouble.

Anyway, it's good that 2 of the 3 suspects have been arrested.

[demonica]

Very unfortunate for the couple... Moving in to your new house should be a happy moment for them as their new beginning, but it doesn't seem that way anymore. With 3 invasions, they wouldn't be able to live peacefully because of the trauma and fear that there might be another attack that could happen... I am not very familiar with the security in France, but if the previous owner is rich, shouldn't the place be hella secure? Like if you're a millionaire, you'd probably be living in a private subdivision with lots of security few kms away before reaching your house? So how come it's that easy for them to keep attempting to rob the house?

Also, there's a possibility that the previous owner might've been receiving threats or had the same experience that's why he decided to sell the house? And think base on the seller's side, if that's the reason why you're selling your house, you won't disclose it to your buyer because they'll definitely won't buy the house.

Another thing, if the crypto owner's information were already leaked, these bad people will still try to find him because they still have other information about him. So even if he moved to a different house, he's still at risk.

[Donneski]

...criminals who has in their possession the house and the address of crypto holders.

Having their address alone wasn't the main reason behind the attacks, they must had other tempting information about the former residents who are into crypto leaked to them which made them see the residence as a target. This is why it's important for people with significant amount of crypto to be very careful about how they disclose their identity, wealth and physical locations so they'll not be connected by these burglars.

...they've sold their houses and the new buyer is not aware that the owner is on the radar of this criminals because they have obtained their data.

Unfortunately for the new buyer, there's nothing they could've done to know that the house seller is on the criminals radar. They became victims of the house seller's carelessness and ended up facing the consequences of someone else's digital footprint. Imagine buying a house with an address that's exposed to criminals

[sokani]

This could be one of the dangers of buying a house own previously by a crypto person. As we all know that France is notoriously known for it's data leak, criminals who has in their possession the house and the address of crypto holders.

Yes it is, and it is impossible to know whether the previous owner of a house owned crypto. It is weird to ask such a question before purchase and even if one cares to ask, it's mostly that he won't get the truth.

But for safety or whatever reasons, they've sold their houses and the new buyer is not aware that the owner is on the radar of this criminals because they have obtained their data. And so the new owners should know the risk specially buying from a crypto millionaire.

Of course, it must be for safety reasons. I guess the former owner realized that he and his family were not safe anymore and had to put up the house for sale.

This incident shows clearly the dangers of a data breach. As crypto owners, we shouldn't just be wary of our wallets being hacked by criminals but also of our data getting into the wrong hands.

[KiaKia]

Before you say that France is the top priority target for wrench attackers think again, it will reach everywhere soon, in my country whenever people who don't know alot heard about crypto they will call you a millionaire, just like that.

In the past they will ask what is crypto, today information is reaching people who aren't even educated at all, this is why I said that this is just the beginning, because it's no deny that the future is going to be about technology.

The more noises that crypto makes the more people who choose to be criminals will be at alert, the couple made a mistake, one dog isn't enough, the second attack was narrow escape, I would have thought that they would be back, in numbers if my dog stop an attack.

[Texac]

In fact on-chain privacy is not enough. If someone make their BTC holding public and in some way any connection is made between their real identity and wealth then it is very normal in this day and age to have physical attack on them.

Simply keeping private key with you does not constitute self custody. To do proper self custody, you also need to keep an eye on how publicly exposed your financial information is and how linkable it is to your real world identity. Because these are all part of the security model.

[Z-tight]

Sometime in mid-last year, a French tax official was arrested and indicted after investigations revealed that she used her position to get information about high net-worth crypto taxpayers in France and she sold this data to bad actors. The criminals in turn used this information, which includes home addresses of the individuals, to carry out $5 wrench attacks on these people.

I am almost certain that there are many other tax officials like Ghalia (that's her name). And the crazy thing about data leaks such as this is that the information would be resold multiple times in the black market, and you cannot even imagine how many bad actors would eventually get a hold of this sensitive information.

[YOSHIE]

Also for the crypto owners that have sold their house, they are still not safe, because the data might have contained their real names and identities.

The security forces, especially the French government and police, should provide maximum security protection for the husband/wife couple, because he got the terror of Invasion of their house from the previous owner's Bitcoin/crypto tax data leak.

The invasion occurred three times, it is clear that there is no mandatory security protection for Bitcoin users in France, considering that they are tax compliant citizens, this is ridiculous, tax data should be safe for Bitcoin users, without having to attract the attention of criminals/robbers.

I think that the husband/wife couple is no longer safe, like it or not, the house has to be sold again, even though the perpetrator of the third invasion was caught and punished, but the problem is that the sentence they face is not only a year, that's a short time, the risk is higher when they are the ones who are punished. free exit law.

[Mrbluntzy]

This could be one of the dangers of buying a house own previously by a crypto person. As we all know that France is notoriously known for it's data leak, criminals who has in their possession the house and the address of crypto holders.

The chance of citizens encountering those thieves and scammers is very high, it's not even about buying house that belongs to a Bitcoin investor, those thieves target any citizen that they know they can steal valuables from, that's not all, sex violation and physical violence has increased and however they get their information about someone, they still attack even people that are not so wealthy. It's very disappointing that even when a crypto investor doesn't share their information with random person, the scammers still get it due to carelessly of the authority handling citizens information, that's one bad side of centralized system.

[aoluain]

In a world where everything is digital and over the web these become the down sides of that.
Data breaches and leaks like the above are worrying and makes you think more about where
you share your data and who its going to.

It also makes you think more that the more info you share/upload online the higher chances
of they being part of a breach or leak happening.

And that probably gets amplified with exchanges requiring AML and KYC, purely on the amount
of exchanges which have been hacked etc.