Three men who forced their way into a Bristol home, assaulted the man who lived there and demanded he hand over cryptocurrency were jailed for a combined 16 and a half years at Bristol Crown Court on Thursday 15 October. Terroll Paul, 31, got six years, Pierre Madzou, 30, five and a half years and Mohamed Samagassi, 37, five years, Avon and Somerset Police said on 16 October. The crypto home invasion failed. The victim’s teenage sister got word to the police, and all three men were arrested at the scene.
All three admitted aggravated burglary at a hearing in August. The police did not say how much cryptocurrency the men demanded or which coins they were after.
A teenager’s call ended the Bristol crypto home invasion
The attack took place in the early hours of 15 May 2026. According to the police release, the three men forced entry into the home, assaulted the man who lived there and demanded what the force called a large amount of cryptocurrency. He was struck on the head, suffered a substantial injury and needed hospital treatment.
His teenage sister managed to alert the police, and officers arrested the three men before they could leave. Paul and Madzou both give addresses in Barking, east London, more than 100 miles from Bristol. Samagassi has no fixed address.
| Defendant | Age | Address given | Sentence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terroll Paul | 31 | Barking, London | 6 years |
| Pierre Madzou | 30 | Barking, London | 5 years 6 months |
| Mohamed Samagassi | 37 | No fixed address | 5 years |
| Total | 16 years 6 months |
In a victim personal statement read out at Thursday’s hearing, the man said: “I am constantly so frightened, paranoid and completely petrified.” He had once been “bubbly, talkative and outgoing”, he said, and would now describe himself as “tense and apprehensive”. The words are in the police release, and Hits Radio Bristol carried the first line in its report on 17 October.
PC Gemma Childs, the investigating officer, said the break-in “has had a devastating and long-lasting effect on the victim” and praised his “outstanding resilience and bravery”. The sister, she said, had shown “extreme bravery”, and her actions led directly to “the apprehension of the offenders and preventing her brother from further harm”.
What the police have not said
The release is short, and much of what crypto holders would want to know is missing. There is no figure for the sum demanded, no named coin or wallet, and no word on how the three men came to believe the victim held cryptocurrency. Police have not said which part of Bristol the house is in, whether a weapon was shown, or whether anyone else helped plan the raid.
The release calls the raid a failed attempt to steal cryptocurrency, so the victim appears to have kept his holdings, but it gives no detail of what the men tried to make him do. No appeal against the sentences and no confiscation proceedings have been reported so far.
Why aggravated burglary carries a life maximum
In England and Wales, aggravated burglary is defined by section 10 of the Theft Act 1968: a burglary committed by someone who has with them a firearm or imitation firearm, a weapon of offence or an explosive. A weapon of offence covers any article made, adapted or intended for injuring or incapacitating a person. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment. The police release does not say which of these applied in Bristol.
Terms of five to six years sit well below that ceiling. Guilty pleas earn a discount under the Sentencing Council’s guideline: up to one third when the plea comes at the first stage of proceedings, and at most one quarter after that, falling to one tenth on the first day of trial. The court’s reasoning and the reduction applied to each man have not been published.
Britain’s earlier crypto home invasions: Hoxton and Solihull
Bristol is not the first case of its kind in the UK. On 17 June 2024, three teenagers from Sheffield posed as delivery drivers to get into a flat in Hoxton, east London, threatened the occupant with knives and took $4.3 million in cryptocurrency, along with his BMW. A number plate camera on the M1 flagged the car less than three hours later, and police stopped it on the M6 in Warwickshire. A Metropolitan Police spokesperson told Decrypt the crypto was “recovered within 72 hours and returned two weeks later”. The three, aged 16 and 17 at the time, received a combined 16 years in youth detention, Decrypt reported in February 2026.
A case in the West Midlands is still open. Around 5:20pm on 13 December 2025, three men pushed in behind a couple as they opened their front door in Smith’s Wood, Solihull. The husband suffered significant injuries, his pregnant wife was threatened with a knife, and the couple were forced to transfer cryptocurrency while a fourth person gave instructions over a video call, according to West Midlands Police. On 24 September 2026, Crimestoppers offered up to £10,000 for information. “Four people planned this and four people know exactly what happened that evening,” said Alan Edwards, the charity’s West Midlands regional manager, as quoted by Decrypt. Decrypt reported no arrests.
The pattern is not limited to Europe. Last week in Canada, seven people, three of them soldiers, were charged over an armed crypto abduction in Toronto.
Wrench attacks in Europe: France has the most cases
Security researchers call these crimes wrench attacks: physical violence or threats used to make a holder unlock a wallet or send funds. A blockchain transfer cannot be reversed by a bank, so the pressure falls on the person who holds the keys. The blockchain security firm CertiK verified 52 such attacks worldwide in the first half of 2026, up from 39 a year earlier, Decrypt reported on 23 July.
| CertiK measure | H1 2026 | H1 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Verified wrench attacks | 52 | 39 |
| Recorded exposure | $124.1M | $10.5M |
| Average per incident | $2.39M | $270,000 |
| Home invasions | 20 | 1 |
| Kidnappings | 16 | 12 |
| Murders | 1 | 1 |
The exposure figure is not money stolen. CertiK counts ransom demands and assets later frozen or recovered, and says under-reporting remains severe. Europe accounted for 75% of the verified incidents, and France alone for 33 of them, about 64% of the total. For the whole of 2025, CertiK counted 72 attacks.
French officials give a higher number. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 77 crypto-linked kidnapping, extortion and attempted extortion cases were recorded in France in the first half of 2026, against 45 in all of 2025, Cointelegraph reported on 2 July. In April, the national organised crime prosecutor’s office said 88 people, 10 of them minors, were under investigation across 12 judicial inquiries, with 75 held in pretrial detention, according to The Block.
The counts differ because they measure different things. CertiK lists incidents it has verified, Chainalysis works from publicly known cases (30 in France by its count), and the minister’s figure covers cases recorded by the French authorities, attempts included.
Chainalysis put successful thefts from violent attacks at more than $30 million by mid-2026, with France recording about 4.6 incidents a month in the first half, against 1.9 in 2025, The Block reported on 6 August. The firm linked the French rise to leaked personal data, including a tax official accused of selling records of wealthy crypto holders and a breach at crypto tax firm Waltio affecting about 50,000 users. A longer, crowd-sourced tally exists too: Jameson Lopp’s list of physical attacks on crypto holders, which we covered on 18 October.
How to protect crypto from wrench attacks at home
None of the measures below would have been certain to help the Bristol victim, and the police have not said how he was picked. They come from security specialists quoted by The Block on 1 January 2026 and from CertiK’s July report.
- Say less in public. Ari Redbord of the analytics firm TRM Labs advises limiting public signals of crypto ownership on social media.
- Split holdings by purpose: a small wallet for daily spending, separate from long-term savings, so that a forced transfer cannot empty everything.
- Make long-term funds impossible to move alone. Pablo Sabbatella of the security firm Opsek suggests a two-of-three multisignature setup with a 72-hour time lock, plus a whitelist of approved addresses.
- Agree what each member of the household does in an attack. Sabbatella recommends a written plan and live drills, and CertiK calls for family duress protocols. In Bristol, it was the sister’s alert that brought officers to the house.
- Give out less personal data. CertiK says crews build target lists from leaked databases, exchange records and on-chain activity, and treats data minimisation as a physical-safety measure.
Odysseas of the security firm Phylax also suggest a decoy wallet, holding what he called “a substantial but not deadly amount”, to hand over under duress. It only works if attackers do not already know the real balance, which leaked tax or exchange data can reveal. Our guide to storing a seed phrase safely covers backup options, and our glossary entry on self-custody explains why holding your own keys moves the security burden onto you.
What comes next
No further court date in the Bristol case has been announced, and the police have not said whether they will seek to confiscate any assets from the three men. In Solihull, the Crimestoppers appeal is still open. CertiK’s next report will show whether the jump in home invasions held through the second half of 2026.