A crypto holder known as Sillituna said on March 5 that attackers stole about $24 million in tokens after threatening violence during a global heist.
The incident raises concerns about so-called “key attacks,” a type of crime in which criminals use physical threats to force victims to hand over control of their crypto wallets in exchange for a hacking attempt.
Victim describes violent coercion
In several messages on X, Sillituna said that the theft involved armed assailants who threatened extreme violence if he did not transfer control of his property. He wrote that the group used weapons and threatened to kidnap and sexually assault, adding that the police in Britain had already been involved in this.
“$24 Million AUSD Theft ($1.00 · Live) from 0x6fe0fab2164d8e0d03ad6a628e2af78624060322 Involving Violence, Guns, Kidnapping & Rape. Obvs Police Involved on Twitter”.
Blockchain analytics platforms soon began tracking the movement of the stolen assets, and Arkham shared information that the attackers took about $23.6 million in aEthUSDC with an address associated with Sillytuna.
The company’s analysis found that most of the funds were quickly transferred to other tokens and spread over several wallets. About $20 million was exchanged for DAI ($1.00 · Live) and placed in two Ethereum addresses. The attackers also transferred small chunks of funds to other networks.
Approximately $2.48 million was transferred to the Arbitrum network, where the funds were transferred through multiple Wagyu accounts. These accounts were then used to buy Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that makes tracking transactions significantly more difficult.
Arkham also reported that approximately $1.1 million was transferred to the Bitcoin network via the paid service, with some of that amount possibly sent to the mixed service.
Security company PeckShield initially described the incident as a possible poisoning attack on the address, but Sillituna rejected this explanation, insisting that the funds were taken through direct physical threat rather than misuse of the wallet.
The victim offered a 10% reward for all recovered funds, even if the criminals themselves paid back. In addition, he asked exchanges and blockchain investigators to help with the package or tracking of shipments.
Community follow-up efforts
Shortly after Sillituna shared his ordeal, members of the cryptographic community began to investigate the transactions in detail, and security researcher Tai Wano noted numerous addresses linked to the theft and confirmed that Wagyu was being used to launder money into Monero’s privacy coin.
PerpetualCow, the developer behind Wagyu, later responded and said the platform does not freeze user funds as a matter of policy. However, they claimed that they had stopped the transactions in the first place, but they were asleep during the transfer.
However, they noted that compliance systems will eventually flag suspicious transactions and prevent additional transfers.
While some members of the public were interested in tracking down the stolen funds, others reacted in different ways. For example, a group within the Solana ecosystem launched a meme token associated with the Sillituna name, saying that trading fees would be used to offset losses.
The Sillituna case is not an isolated incident, but part of a growing documentation of keystone attacks. Some of the most famous incidents include the kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland in January 2025 from his home in France, and the assailants cut off one of his fingers to pressure his associates into paying a ransom.
In another case, a US resident who came to London became addicted and lost about $122,000 in crypto after cheating on a cigarette laced with scopolamine.
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