A family in the US was taken hostage for cryptocurrency

[YOSHIE]

The brothers ultimately stole more than $8 million in cryptocurrency. They were later arrested and sentenced to 15 and 15.5 years in prison.

Maybe cases of Bitcoin robbery are becoming increasingly common, especially in US states. I used to think Bitcoin robbery was impossible and difficult to happen, because all the access to Bitcoin is with us and is strictly kept secret, it turns out my guess was totally wrong, robbers have the cruelest way to get access to the Bitcoin of the person they robbed.

I don't know, from which side we store Bitcoin to make it truly safe, it seems like this world is no longer good for those who own Bitcoin assets, it is more dangerous than gold.
In the online world there are hackers.
In the real world there are robberies.

So, what should we do....... with the Bitcoin assets that we own that are truly safe from criminal acts.

[Marvelockg]

Same scenario, same reason. This is the very reason why we have to stay a low profile and live lowkey. Do not advertise online and offline and flex that you are holding a lot of cryptos, you can't trust the people around you especially if money is involved.

It is very annoying that once people know that you are in the crypto ecosystem, the just conclude that you are holding a large chunk of crypto and directly make you a target to steal from.

This is part of the reason why even when crypto is legalized in my country, i find it hard to talk to people about it that i am holding it because you can not really trust people like that. even the security personnel that stops and search vehicle, if they discover that you are a crypto holder or that their is a chance you might be holding bitcoin, they can even collaborate with guys like this and leak your information to them so you can be attacked. we are already dealing with cyber security which is on the increase and physical security is not getting any better.

[ColdLava40]

Two brothers broke into a Minnesota home, bound all family members with zip ties, and held them at gunpoint for over nine hours, demanding access to their crypto wallets.

It's not surprising since they were able to tell about their daily routine and travel.

The question remains how possible were the criminals able to know about the families cryptocurrency holding? Except they have been loud about it and failed to keep their privacy.

We put our lives at risk, when we do not take privacy very seriously.

A family member must have bragged about their cryptocurrency in the public and didn't know who was listening to them at that time. This is why we should learn to keep quiet about your investments or anything relating to your financial life.

[Itz-prisigold]

Same scenario, same reason. This is the very reason why we have to stay a low profile and live lowkey. Do not advertise online and offline and flex that you are holding a lot of cryptos, you can't trust the people around you especially if money is involved.

Frankly speaking this was the thought that came across my mind while reading the op’s topic. Because I couldn't help but think how the attackers were able to know that this family had such significant amount of cryptocurrency.  It may have been a friend or acquaintance or even somebody they had never met who might have seen some information about the holdings online.

Although we can’t actually conclude because It's hard to say for sure but it's a good reminder to be careful with what information we share, and with whom. There is a time and place for everything, and sometimes what we say without thinking much meaning to it can tell as more about our financial lives than we think.

[uchegod-21]

Two brothers broke into a Minnesota home, bound all family members with zip ties, and held them at gunpoint for over nine hours, demanding access to their crypto wallets.

It's not surprising since they were able to tell about their daily routine and travel.

The question remains how possible were the criminals able to know about the families cryptocurrency holding? Except they have been loud about it and failed to keep their privacy.

We put our lives at risk, when we do not take privacy very seriously.

A family member must have bragged about their cryptocurrency in the public and didn't know who was listening to them at that time. This is why we should learn to keep quiet about your investments or anything relating to your financial life.

They may not have bragged about it; it could been just one harmless conversation with a close friend or relative, which the victim thought wouldn't cause any problems.

It seems as if people get attacked or targeted more when they own crypto (bitcoin) than when they own just fiat. Maybe the reason is that criminals believe that if they target bitcoin holders, it will be difficult for such acts to be traced back to them.

There are a lot of lessons to be learnt here... Trust no one. Most of these attacks are carried out by people the victims trusted the most.

[perfect999]

People think that "protecting your bitcoin" is like hardware wallets and all that; sure, that is good, but security is not just from hackers. Do not go around telling people you own money.

This is what happens if you do; we are seeing these types of news all the time everywhere, and it is getting more and more rampant as well. The paper trail is weaker on crypto as well, because if they can do a p2p trade, then it would be basically gone, or a proper mixer would make sure that they are not caught, because it takes a lot of resources to follow that, and unless they stole billions, they are not going to get that.

[Hamza2424]

Two brothers broke into a Minnesota home, bound all family members with zip ties, and held them at gunpoint for over nine hours, demanding access to their crypto wallets.
When the head of the family failed to transfer the required amount, he was forced to go to a country house to obtain additional hardware wallets.
The brothers ultimately stole more than $8 million in cryptocurrency. They were later arrested and sentenced to 15 and 15.5 years in prison.

$8 million is a lot of money, bro. How the hell did they come to know about this? There was a third person who is still on the run. The case has explicitly mentioned that these two were in constant contact with a third person who was guiding them. So that third person is still a threat to this family.

Although CBS has mentioned that the victims think their information has been exposed through a data breach, there is no confirmation of this.

Anyway, we should be careful not just with friends but with centralized platforms too. Never show anyone how much we have in our wallets, and we should prefer privacy-centric platforms.

[HelliumZ]

This is a lesson to be learned and we need to learn not to tell anyone about our wallets. If someone knows about our wallets, they will target us and if our children are alone at any time, the kidnappers who target us can kidnap us. That is why we should not share all this information about having Bitcoin with anyone.
We often go to public functions or public places under the guise of laughter and give information about the Bitcoins we have. Here we have the possibility of danger because there may be bad people here who may be waiting for our opportunity. it should never be dangerous to share your information with anyone.

[greysonz]

@greysonz, does this news have anything to do with Bitcoin? This is a Bitcoin discussion board and only topics related to it should be here.

I figured that since we're talking about hardware wallets, the victims were most likely storing bitcoins, and I thought this thread was the best place for discussion. If you think this should be moved, why not? I just couldn't find a better place.

[Antotena]

Frankly speaking this was the thought that came across my mind while reading the op’s topic. Because I couldn't help but think how the attackers were able to know that this family had such significant amount of cryptocurrency.  It may have been a friend or acquaintance or even somebody they had never met who might have seen some information about the holdings online.

Although we can’t actually conclude because It's hard to say for sure but it's a good reminder to be careful with what information we share, and with whom. There is a time and place for everything, and sometimes what we say without thinking much meaning to it can tell as more about our financial lives than we think.

This is why privacy is very important, when people don't know anything that you do, they don't even know where to attack you. If you let people know what you have and very precious, this is the kind of attack that you get. When people knows nothing about you, they wouldn't know what to even do with you, even if they have this kind of attack on their mind, they will not want to waste their time and resources, they will think it will not give them anything.

I just feel like this year is a trying time for crypto and it's users, 2026 is one of the worst years of crypto, if you don't wake up to see a hack exchange, it's a vulnerability from one wallet to a hardware wallet data breach to another exchange hack and now it's kidnapping. We just want to make a safe investment with Bitcoin but these attacks are not funny anymore, worst that we are in bear market.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

@greysonz, does this news have anything to do with Bitcoin? This is a Bitcoin discussion board and only topics related to it should be here.

I figured that since we're talking about hardware wallets, the victims were most likely storing bitcoins, and I thought this thread was the best place for discussion. If you think this should be moved, why not? I just couldn't find a better place.

Maybe the Legal section would have been a better choice but the topic fits well here as well.

[serjent05]

People think that "protecting your bitcoin" is like hardware wallets and all that; sure, that is good, but security is not just from hackers. Do not go around telling people you own money.

This is what happens if you do; we are seeing these types of news all the time everywhere, and it is getting more and more rampant as well. The paper trail is weaker on crypto as well, because if they can do a p2p trade, then it would be basically gone, or a proper mixer would make sure that they are not caught, because it takes a lot of resources to follow that, and unless they stole billions, they are not going to get that.

The greatest weakness of security is the slip of the tongue.  Even with high-security encryption that protects the wallet a person is holding, if the person is braggy about his cryptocurrency holdings, it is sure that one day, someone will be knocking at that person's door and point a gun to demand his cryptocurrency holdings and this is I think what happened to the case @OP presented

Never brag about your cryptocurrency holdings or post a Bitcoin wallet address to prove the bragging.  We should make sure that no one can trace those addresses back to us.  It is for our own safety.

With Bitcoin so popular today, evil people are always watching for possible people they can victimize, either through online fraud or through physical extortion. So I always think that it is better to stay in a low profile than be popular and get all kinds of trouble.

[Pandorak]

With each passing day, the news reports emerging about forced crypto thefts are becoming more and more alarming, it’s truly heartbreaking.

There are many lessons we can learn from various cases of crypto theft. Among them is the importance of maintaining privacy, never even consider flexing just to be recognized as someone who holds so many assets or has such a large investment, solely for the purpose of being praised. This is a grave mistake and you will regret it later on. After all, we don’t know what’s in everyone’s heart, even if they’re people you trust, because there will always be those driven by envy or malicious intent. So, for your own peace of mind and safety, it's better to just keep quiet and simply enjoy your life.

As for the perpetrators, it’s fortunate that they’ve been caught, a 15 year sentence seems very appropriate given the amount of assets stolen and a very real threat to life.

[Adiljutt156]

Here is the dilemma, the Gen Z culture is very much about putting your day to day life and business out there for the world to see. I doubt they are going to change even after seeing others get attacked for exposing their bitcoin hodlings onlines. Their insatiable need for likes and validation from strangers on the internet won’t let them use their common sense.

Gen Z, crypto, and social media are a deadly combo for this era because there are enough things happening due to these things—too many hacks and scams just because of social media, where easily everything available to do stuff for people with criminal mindsets they never think again but they always try to have, which is in our wallets.
People need to learn from others or also need to avoid things that are always going to be a problem for them, but as things are going on, if people are not going to learn, they are going to pay more, like many stories already on paper, but no one is trying to have some improvement. Hopefully someone will change his style of life and have safety measures in his style.

[uchegod-21]

Everytime I read about one of these wrench attacks, my mind immediately goes to the bitcoin family, I don’t know how they have managed to stay safe from criminals when the whole world knows they are rich in bitcoin.

Maybe in these cases it is necessary to declare that their bitcoin wallets are stored in safes in the bank, as philipma1957 did. At least, such a statement will be a barrier for the robbers, although it is not a fact. We have heard other stories where young people, in order to show off to their friends, claimed their non-existent assets, after which the robbers did not believe that the guys were just joking. Anyone who starts breaking into other people's homes is already willing to do a lot for money, so whether they get what they want or not, the end sometimes turns out to be quite sad for the owners of the places where the robbers break in. And yes, smart people are proud of what they have in their heads-intelligence and abilities-while stupid people "improve" by bragging..

Here is the dilemma, the Gen Z culture is very much about putting your day to day life and business out there for the world to see. I doubt they are going to change even after seeing others get attacked for exposing their bitcoin hodlings onlines. Their insatiable need for likes and validation from strangers on the internet won’t let them use their common sense.

Should there really be a dilemma? Maybe they should choose between their personal safety and showing off to the world their entire life. If all of these stories do not scare them, I wonder what else will. Most of this young generation only realise that they have been making the wrong move when they finally become victims to this security issues. If they won't learn from these stories, they will learn from personal experiences.

[sokani]

The article doesn’t mention how the robbers knew the family had bitcoin. According to the report, it appears l the robbers had information of how much coins the family had in their custody. My best guess is that someone in the family posted about their crypto hodlings online or maybe shared it with someone and the news went round.

Another possible scenario of how the criminals knew that the family had crypto could be through a data breach. The family's data might have leaked and fallen into the wrong hands. If this is the case, it will be such a pity. After doing everything right to be discreet and maintain their privacy, one hack on a centralised platform and their privacy is compromised.

Everytime I read about one of these wrench attacks, my mind immediately goes to the bitcoin family, I don’t know how they have managed to stay safe from criminals when the whole world knows they are rich in bitcoin.

I'm surprised as well. I'm beginning to think they have a secret they are not telling anyone.

[retreat]

It is really a shame that that family had to go through such a terrible experience. However, that is one of the risks when others find out that you hold a large amount of cryptocurrency. If they had kept their privacy from the start, they might well have been able to avoid that incident. But what could they do, they also certainly never expected that the robbers would come to their house and dig deeper into information about how much crypto they had. I think they were just really unlucky. Fortunately no one was killed in that situation.

[Jubilee58]

Sometimes this kind of attack can be as a result of divulgance of information from people around you. These criminals don't attack without information. This is the reason why it is said that the safety of your investment starts from you. Sometimes we outside to talk about our cryptocurrency investing even around people that are not trusted or someone around you could connive with people outside to come, and attack you, but when your investment remains confidential, it is very hard for you to be attacked. However, this criminals can cause so much harm to their victims, so whoever is caught stealing someone's Bitcoin should be punished severely so that other people with such intentions will withdraw themselves from such act.

[philipma1957]

Two brothers broke into a Minnesota home, bound all family members with zip ties, and held them at gunpoint for over nine hours, demanding access to their crypto wallets.
When the head of the family failed to transfer the required amount, he was forced to go to a country house to obtain additional hardware wallets.

When it get to do with crypto theft where victims are physically targeted or attacked, it's usually that the victim had somehow showed up to the public about their crypto holding which is unlike the online medium of launching attacks which we knows victim's can be targeted randomly and maliciously through phishing files to detect victims while the vulnerables falls victims either by convincing the target in any way and steal their fund's or they gains access and processes the transaction illegally from their own end.
Of course there're stories that had talked about physical robbery of bitcoins and crypto currency. Meanwhile, I've been of the interest to know how those victims where identified to be crypto currency owners but the storylines of the news didn't disclose such information. I also wondered how the thefts knew the victim has another hardware wallet that holds such amounts that only got them satisfied because the thefts acted like they knows how the victims has according to their demands.

Well, this theft incident calls for the necessity why we must not flaunt or publicly show it that we owns bitcoin else, it'll attract cases like this one in Minnesota.

there are tens of thousands of leaked trezor addresses mine is leaked> I routinely get fishing letters in the mail to my home address and my email.

My trezor is locked at the bank in a safety box  basically I can not be the only one listed as having a trezor.

looks like you do not read the thread.

Sometimes this kind of attack can be as a result of divulgance of information from people around you. These criminals don't attack without information. This is the reason why it is said that the safety of your investment starts from you. Sometimes we outside to talk about our cryptocurrency investing even around people that are not trusted or someone around you could connive with people outside to come, and attack you, but when your investment remains confidential, it is very hard for you to be attacked. However, this criminals can cause so much harm to their victims, so whoever is caught stealing someone's Bitcoin should be punished severely so that other people with such intentions will withdraw themselves from such act.

see what I wrote there are thousands of addresses leaked due to kyc hacks and such

[arwin100]

Sometimes this kind of attack can be as a result of divulgance of information from people around you. These criminals don't attack without information. This is the reason why it is said that the safety of your investment starts from you. Sometimes we outside to talk about our cryptocurrency investing even around people that are not trusted or someone around you could connive with people outside to come, and attack you, but when your investment remains confidential, it is very hard for you to be attacked. However, this criminals can cause so much harm to their victims, so whoever is caught stealing someone's Bitcoin should be punished severely so that other people with such intentions will withdraw themselves from such act.

see what I wrote there are thousands of addresses leaked due to kyc hacks and such

Yeah it happens and the more data gotten by those criminals. The more dangerous to people, since anytime they can attack the same as what happen to that family mentioned by OP.

This is the danger of KYC, because the bad actors can do profiling to see on who are those people near to them and if they can take something if they attempt to scam them or more serious crimes to their target.

That's why I encourage people to limit their online exposure, then don't give their details online. Because this situation can also happen with them, people should priority their safety rather than thinking about quick or small profits they could get on random online platforms.