Known Physical Bitcoin Attacks

A list of known attacks against Bitcoin / crypto asset owning entities that occurred in meatspace. NOTE: this list is not comprehensive; many attacks are not publicly reported. If you are aware of an attack that is not listed, please open an issue or pull request — see CONTRIBUTING.md for what qualifies and how to add entries.

For interactive visual dashboards of this data, check out our map and the Crypto Crime Dashboard For more comprehensive statistical breakdowns of attack attributes, check out gart.io

For high level analyses and best practices, readers may be interested in this 2020 presentation: "The Hodlguard- a primer on physical security in Bitcoin" and slides. Also, Jameson's 2025 presentation with updated metrics and advice. Finally, this academic paper analyzing physical attacks using Bitcointalk as a data source.

Date	Victim	Location	Description
December 29, 2014	Hal Finney	Santa Barbara, California, United States	Bitcoin developer SWATted after months of harrassment & extortion (original link)
January 3, 2015	Amanda McCollum	Atlanta, Georgia, United States	BTM thieves strike smoke shop, fire gun (original link)
January 22, 2015	Martin Wismeijer	Amsterdam, Netherlands	Thieves steal 2 bitcoin ATMs (original link)
February, 2015	Dean Katz	New York, New York, United States	Bitcoin trader robbed of $12,000 at gunpoint (original link)
May 27, 2015	Dwayne Richards	New York, New York, United States	Firefighter kidnapped, robbed of $1,100, & stabbed by crypto thieves (original link)
November 16, 2015	Robert Nederhoed	Delft, Netherlands	Thieves steal bitcoin ATM containing 2,000 EUR (original link)
July 11, 2016	Tadas Kasputis	Kaunas, Lithuania	Cryptocurrency executive kidnapped at car wash (original link)
July 25, 2016	Steve Manos	West Palm Beach, Florida, United States	Bitcoin trader robbed of $28,000 at gunpoint (original link)
August 14, 2016	Multiple	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	Police arrest teens in string of bitcoin-related robberies (original link)
November 6, 2016	Tivoli Brasserie	Oudenbosch, Netherlands	Dutch Bitcoin ATM Owner Laughs at Thieves Who Took His Machine (original link)
February 16, 2017	Josoj	London, England	Description of robbery during Localbitcoins trade with Bitcoin Uncensored interview and the robber's side of the story.
February 26, 2017	Rocelo Lopes' wife	Florianopolis, Brazil	Wife of crypto exchange owner kidnapped and ransomed (original link)
March 14, 2017	3 Indian Bitcoin traders	Dubai, UAE	3 Emiratis pose as cops, kidnap victims and rob them of 25 BTC (original link)
June 17, 2017	Miyuki Noda	Gifu, Japan	Woman strangled, attacker takes 100,000 yen worth of BTC (original link)
September 4, 2017	Alexey Sherstne	Kyiv, Ukraine	Man tortured for $50k in Bitcoins (original link)
October 16, 2017	Jameson Lopp	Durham, North Carolina, United States	Bitcoin developer swatted & extorted (original link)
October, 2017	Multiple	Toulouse, France	4 bitcoin traders robbed at gunpoint (original link)
October, 2017	Multiple	Los Angeles, California, United States	"Discount Bitcoin Bandits" committed 5 robberies at gunpoint (original link)
November 4, 2017	Unidentified	New York, New York, United States	Man robbed of $1.8M of ETH (original link)
November 15, 2017	Unidentified	Istanbul, Turkey	Gang stole $2.83M in BTC from businessman (original link)
December, 2017	Unidentified	Reykjavik, Iceland	600 Bitcoin ASICs stolen (original link) and Follow-up Story (original link)
December 26, 2017	Pavel Lerner	Kyiv, Ukraine	Bitcoin exchange owner kidnapped & ransomed (original link)
?, 2018	"T.W."	Los Angeles, California, United States	Home invasion by FBI impersonator who demanded laptop passwords to access cryptocurrency. (original link)