Russian man detonates airsoft grenades during botched crypto heist

A Russian man has been arrested after allegedly storming a cryptocurrency in St. Petersburg stock exchange armed with weapons to rob the platform.

According to a local media report, the 21-year-old man reportedly entered the exchange office at an apartment hotel on Khersonska Street on Saturday, detonated two Airsoft grenades and detonated a smoke bomb before ordering staff to transfer all available cryptocurrency to his computer. wallet.

Experts who inspected the remains of the blast said the suspect had used Airsoft imitation grenades, which cause commotion without real destructive power.

Patrol police and security forces arrested the suspect, seized two Airsoft grenades and now regional authorities are considering preventive measures as he faces serious theft charges, the report said.

Crypto violence is on the rise

The botched heist comes amid a disturbing global trend of violent attacks targeting crypto holders, known in the industry as “key attacks.”

“We expect things to get worse through 2026 unless privacy tools and global law enforcement coordination scale up quickly,” David Richards, CEO of analytics firm BlockchainUnmasked, previously said. Declutter.

Recent attacks have turned deadly; Earlier this month, convicted Russian crypto fraudster Roman Novak and his wife Anna were murdered in the UAE after men posing as investors demanded access to his crypto portfolios.

Last Saturday, a San Francisco homeowner lost $11 million in crypto after a fake delivery man restrained him with duct tape and forced him to hand over his wallet credentials.

“The victim reported being physically restrained by the suspect and suffering financial loss,” SFPD Public Information Officer Paulina Henderson said. Declutteradding that no arrests have been made in the “active and open investigation.”

Meanwhile, a family in British Columbia suffered waterboarding and sexual assault during a home invasion in April 2024, netting attackers $1.6 million in Bitcoin.

A Provincial Court ruling found that the attackers tied up the victims and threatened to cut off the man’s genitals while demanding access to their cryptocurrency.

Cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek said this earlier Declutter that researchers typically pursue multiple angles simultaneously when responding to crypto attacks.

“The hard truth is that identifying the suspects is usually much more feasible than recovering the stolen crypto,” he said.

The experts advise crypto holders to avoid posting about their holdings on social media and implement multi-factor authentication to reduce their risk of being targeted.