How to Not Get Kidnapped for Your Bitcoin

Pete Kayll, a musclebound veteran of Britain’s Royal Marines, had an unusual instruction for the Bitcoin investors gathered in Switzerland in late October.

“Just bite your way out,” he told them.

It was the final day of a weekend-long cryptocurrency convention on the shore of Lake Lugano, near the Italian border. A small group of investors had lined up in a conference room to have their hands bound with plastic zipties. Now they were learning how to get them off.

“Your teeth will get through anything,” Mr. Kayll advised. “But it will bloody well hurt.”

Most people don’t go to an international crypto conference expecting to learn how to gnaw through plastic. But after hours of panels devoted to topics like Bitcoin-collateralized loans, these investors were looking for something more practical. They wanted to know what to do if they were grabbed on the street and thrown into the back of a van.

This year, crypto investors or their families have been targeted by assailants more than 60 times, according to a tallies of public reports, a string of gruesome attacks that has shocked the industry and made headlines worldwide. In France, the father of a crypto influencer was found in the trunk of an attacker’s car — bound, beaten and covered in petrol. Thieves in Minnesota held a family at gunpoint for nine hours, demanding access to $8 million in crypto. And in Manhattan, federal prosecutors charged two men with kidnapping and torturing a crypto trader inside a luxurious 17-room townhouse.

In crypto circles, these episodes are known as “wrench attacks,” a reference to a widely shared cartoon in which a computer expert’s high-tech security is foiled by a thief who threatens to hit him with a wrench until he gives up his password.

The recent surge of wrench attacks has been fueled partly by the rising price of Bitcoin, which hit a record of $126,000 last month, minting a new generation of millionaires and even billionaires, many of whom have little personal security.

It was precisely that kind of situation that the investors in Lugano were desperate to avoid. They had gathered for a daylong “counter-kidnapping” workshop that was scheduled for the end of the Plan B conference, an annual Bitcoin gathering sponsored by Tether, one of the world’s biggest crypto firms.

The workshop’s organizer, Alena Vranova, an entrepreneur based in Prague, has conducted extensive research on wrench attacks, compiling data on the disturbing pattern of abductions.

“We have a surging epidemic of physical violence against crypto people,” Ms. Vranova said in an interview. “We are at one kidnapping and extortion per week. That’s quite brutal.”

Arguably the most gruesome assault came in January when David Balland, a founder of the crypto hardware firm Ledger, was kidnapped with his wife from their home in France. The attackers cut off one of Mr. Balland’s fingers and circulated an image of the mutilated appendage, demanding ransom paid in crypto. Part of the ransom was paid, and the local police located Mr. Balland and his wife after a 48-hour search.

The case had a disturbing resonance for Ms. Vranova, who helped start Trezor, a competitor to Ledger that develops hardware devices for the secure storage of cryptocurrencies.

“If they can take the co-founder of a hardware wallet, they can take anyone,” Ms. Vranova said.

In February, Ms. Vranova founded Glok, a business that is developing an app that crypto investors can use as a kind of panic button. It’s one of a number of countermeasures that have gained traction in the crypto world, as security firms rush to profit from the panic, offering bodyguards and other “white-glove protection” services.

Before the workshop, Ms. Vranova led a short seminar at the Plan B convention center in Lugano, where she flipped through a gruesome PowerPoint detailing one abduction after another. To a rapt audience of about 100 Bitcoin enthusiasts, she described an assault in Spain in which an executive was held captive in his home, pepper-sprayed, handcuffed and beaten by attackers who wanted access to 25 million euros in cryptocurrency.

“He was extremely shaken by this,” Ms. Vranova said. “Obviously.”

Two days later, she hosted the self-defense workshop at a co-working space in Lugano, charging €1,000 per seat.

Outside, couples walked along a tree-lined promenade that looks out on Lake Lugano, with views of the mountains stretching toward northern Italy. The kidnapping session was more austere: Five men assembled in a small seminar room, where glare from the ceiling lights was reflected on a large TV screen. A copy of a book titled “Top 10 Bitcoin F*ck Ups” was propped on a table.

The session was led by two security consultants who met more than a decade ago on assignment in Iraq: Kevin Harris, a Welshman with tattoos running up his arm, and Mr. Kayll, the grandson of Joe Kayll, a renowned English fighter pilot who escaped a German prison camp during World War II.

“The more you go down the rabbit hole, the more paranoid you get,” one of them said.

Most of the morning was devoted to prevention strategies — how not to get abducted. Kidnappers often target people who have signaled publicly that they have lots of money, Mr. Harris and Mr. Kayll explained. Over the years, crypto investors have not helped themselves by posting photos of Rolex watches, alcohol-fueled yacht parties and luxury sports cars.

“No Lambos anymore,” Ms. Vranova warned the group. She handed out a set of door stoppers, small black wedges that can prevent thieves from rampaging into hotel rooms.

Soon the conversation turned to a tantalizing scenario — a beautiful woman approaches a wealthy crypto trader at a bar, showing an unlikely degree of romantic interest. Unfortunately, Mr. Kayll said, these interactions could be part of a so-called honey-pot scheme designed to lure the target into divulging compromising information.

“For you guys, it’ll be a female — I’d send in a girl every time,” he said. It would be unwise to “tell her what you know about Bitcoin.”

Everyone listened intently, sipping coffee and scribbling notes in little white instruction manuals that were distributed at the start of the session. It was clear that threats lurked everywhere. As lunchtime approached, the group discussed the wisdom of downloading Uber on a backup phone and learned about the shortcomings of American bodyguards.

Still, even the most sophisticated protection can’t eliminate every angle of attack. Sometimes self-defense is necessary.

Mr. Harris walked through a list of everyday items that can be converted into weapons — a pen, a belt clip, an umbrella. He demonstrated the proper technique for punching an assailant.

“We’re not gonna go bam bam bam and go all Jackie Chan,” he said. “We’re gonna go straight for the clavicle.”

“If you crack it, they ain’t coming at you,” Mr. Kayll added.

A sharp kick to the knee is also effective, Mr. Harris explained. He lifted his foot toward Mr. Kayll, offering a slow-motion demonstration.

“It’s nasty,” Mr. Harris said. “That kneecap is going to disappear around the other side of the leg.”

It was the sort of street-fighting move that sounds great in theory, a useful technique for staving off a Bitcoin thief. But a note at the end of the manual urged caution.

“Remember,” it said, “your life is worth more than any amount of cryptocurrency.”

Audio produced by Sarah Diamond.