British men were imprisoned for a combined 76 years after brutal crypto theft

A group of seven British men has been imprisoned for a combined 76 years after kidnapping and brutalization of a man in an attempt to acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars in Crypto assets.

According to a report from the local police, the non -created victim was kidnapped in December from his house in Irlam, Greater Manchester, before it was thrown into a van and was violently brought to a property near his head.

The victim was then tied to a bed and hit by the men, getting bruises and fire signs with a weapon. The police later grabbed a working firearm, three rounds ammunition, an imitation fire, an air gun, knives, meat hook, a metal baseball bat, a machete and a hammer from the scene.

The police received an anonymous call report for well -being at the property and on arrival a man saw running away from the address – later identified as Karl Johnson.

The group of men reportedly visited the victim several times in 2023 to threaten him to transfer his large crypto portfolio, estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The wave of attacks began in January 2023, and over five consecutive incidents, the victim saw are locked up in a cupboard, drugged with morphine, attacked with machetes and knives and threatened with death. The victim had already paid the criminals more than $ 124,250 (£ 100,000) in the run -up to the ultimate incident.

A forensic analysis of a gun and ammunition that the police seized from the scene of the last kidnapping corresponded to a man named Jonathan Newns. He was imprisoned for 20 years for two counts of attempted theft, two counts of false prison sentence, kidnapping and possession of a forbidden firearm.

Another man, David Povey, was imprisoned for 20 years for theft, kidnapping, false prison sentence and attempted theft. The other five men were sentenced between two and 14 years for their share in the series of crimes.

The police report did not establish how the criminals learned about the crypto property of the victim.

In recent years there have been a number of cases of criminals who carried out targeted, violent house invasions with large crypto holders, both inside and outside the UK

In March 2020, a Scottish man was threatened with a machete in his own house in the city of Blantyre, near Glasgow, by a group that tried to transfer his crypto companies.

And in June 2024, the FBI revealed how a group of advanced methods used in Florida used and focusing victims of their home invasion, such as unauthorized access to e-mail accounts and physical surveillance.

Edited by Stephen Graves.