In short
- Former Ukrainian police officers are said to have kidnapped crypto entrepreneurs and extorted approximately $2.2 million through violence, intimidation and false debt claims.
- Prosecutors say the group targeted at least four victims, using law enforcement tactics, official transportation and police impersonation to carry out the plan.
- The case comes amid a global rise in crypto key attacks, in which criminals use physical coercion to steal digital assets.
Former Ukrainian police colonels allegedly turned their law enforcement expertise into a criminal enterprise, kidnapping crypto entrepreneurs and extorting more than $2.2 million in a series of crypto key attacks, prosecutors said.
The Kyiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said On Thursday, it had completed its preliminary investigation into a group including four former police officers and a previously convicted civilian, all of whom have yet to be formally charged in the attacks.
According to prosecutors, the suspects were active officers of the Main Police Department in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation since 2014, and a Kiev-based unit before being dismissed after their arrest.
Two colonels among them organized the group and recruited fellow officers and a civilian accomplice with a previous criminal conviction.
Prosecutors accuse the defendants of creating and participating in an armed gang, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, theft, extortion and illegal possession of drugs.
The officials identified at least four crypto entrepreneurs as victims who were allegedly followed, kidnapped, held at gunpoint and forced to hand over money and sign documents acknowledging non-existent debts.
The gang reportedly used official skills, connections and resources to operate in a coordinated manner with a clear division of roles, communicating via coded messengers, using official transportation and presenting themselves as law enforcement officers while committing the crimes.
In one documented case, a victim was allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint in Kiev and forced to make a false $5 million “debt” before being transferred between multiple secret locations.
The gang’s illegal activities ended in November 2025 and all participants were released from police service, with case materials forwarded to the court.
Risk for crypto entrepreneurs
Law enforcement credentials have been used in crypto “key attacks” before.
In March, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury convicted former LAPD officer Eric Halem of kidnapping and robbery after he and accomplices posed as police to enter a Koreatown apartment, handcuff two victims and transfer $350,000 in Bitcoin from a 17-year-old’s crypto account.
That same month, in a home invasion in Versailles, assailants posed as police and forced a couple in their late 50s to wire about $1 million to their home. Bitcoin at knife point.
Cases where institutional authority is abused to coerce crypto holders remain uncommon, says cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek. Declutter.
“The victims’ crypto may have been cryptographically secure, but that didn’t matter when violence, coercion and forced agreements entered the picture,” he added.
Crypto creates a clear security risk because assets can be transferred “rapidly, across borders and under duress,” he said. Once local protection becomes unreliable, entrepreneurs must take personal security, jurisdictional risk, legal backup, and operational confidentiality as seriously as wallet security.
The case, Baek said, illustrates how crypto entrepreneurs can become targets not only for hackers, but also for actors capable of exploiting official power. He warns that in high-corruption environments, extortion can look like “a twisted abuse of state authority” rather than ordinary street crime.
War, corruption and institutional stress can create conditions in which coercive schemes are harder to detect, he noted, giving criminals more room to operate behind what he called “confusion, fear and false legal pressure.”
According to a report from blockchain security firm CertiK, 72 verified “key attack” incidents occurred worldwide in 2025, a 75% increase from the previous year, with confirmed losses of more than $40.9 million.
In France, authorities charged 88 suspects, including more than ten minors, in judicial investigations into violent crypto kidnappings in late April, after recording 135 crypto-related incidents since 2023.
The latest high-profile case came earlier this month, when six suspects, including two teenagers, allegedly tried to kidnap the wife of Sandbox co-founder Sébastien Borget in their French home.
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