Three men have been sentenced to a combined 16.5 years in prison over a failed break-in at a Bristol home in which they attempted to force the occupant to hand over his cryptocurrency holdings. Bristol Crown Court handed down the sentences on 15 October, months after the trio pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary.
The attack took place on 15 May 2026, when the men entered the property intending to coerce the victim into transferring crypto assets. The victim was hit on the head and required hospital treatment. The plan was cut short when his teenage sister alerted police, who arrived and arrested the men at the scene.
Terroll Paul, 31, of Barking, east London, received the heaviest sentence at 6 years. Pierre Madzou, 30, also of Barking, was sentenced to 5.5 years, and Mohamed Samagassi, 37, who has no fixed address, received 5 years. All three had entered guilty pleas to aggravated burglary at an earlier hearing in August.
Detective Gemma Childs of Avon and Somerset Police handled the case, with the force detailing the outcome in a press release following sentencing. The victim described the lasting impact of the ordeal, saying he remained \"constantly scared\" afterwards.
Part of a wider pattern
The Bristol case follows other recent UK prosecutions involving violence against crypto holders. In February, three teenagers in Sheffield were sentenced to a combined 16 years in detention for stealing $4.3 million in crypto from a Hoxton resident in June 2024, having posed as delivery drivers to gain entry. In May, four men were sentenced to up to 6.5 years each for kidnapping a City employee after a night out in Shoreditch in July 2025, a case that came to light after Coinbase alerted authorities.
Data from Chainalysis points to a broader rise in so-called wrench attacks, in which criminals use physical coercion rather than hacking to extract crypto from victims. The firm recorded 46 such attacks globally in the first half of 2026, up from 40 a year earlier, with total losses exceeding $30 million. Notably, the share of attacks that resulted in a payment fell sharply, to 26% in 2026 from 49% in 2025, suggesting victims and bystanders are more often able to intervene or refuse before funds change hands, as happened in Bristol.
France has seen a particularly steep increase. The country recorded 30 public incidents by mid-2026, compared with 19 for the whole of 2025, and 41 crypto-related kidnapping cases between January and mid-April alone. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez cited 77 kidnappings, extortions or attempted extortions in July, up from 45 the previous year. Chainalysis has noted that the record $58 million extorted through such attacks in 2025 underscores the scale of the threat facing crypto holders across Europe.
