A Bitcoin trader was assaulted with extreme violence in Herzliya on September 7, when two men broke into his apartment, tied him with cables, beat him and stabbed him in the legs for an hour. The attack resulted in extortion and theft of crypto assets and high-value items, with forced transfers and removal of belongings. The case, which already has formal charges and arrests, exposes a rise in physical attacks against holders and security tensions for the industry.
The attackers first demanded 500 BTC —about 61 million dollars that day— and ended up forcing transfers totaling $547,260 in BTC and $42,248 in USDT. They also took a Rolex valued at $50,000, a Trezor wallet, €5,000 in cash and banknotes, after keeping the victim tied up, beaten and wounded with stab wounds to the legs for an hour inside his apartment in Herzliya.
The Tel Aviv prosecutor’s office charged Murad Mahajneh, 46, with ten prior convictions, and an accomplice with violent robbery and laundering of crypto assets. The arrest was carried out on September 10 with call recordings and camera footage as support.
The funds were moved through several wallets and passed through the centralized exchanges HTX and Kyrrex, according to the reconstruction.
Case details and judicial process
Researcher Jameson Lopp counts this incident as number 52 of 2025, indicating an increase in physical attacks on holders.
Alena Vranova, founder of SatoshiLabs, warns that massive leaks exposed some 80 million crypto user identities, including 2.2 million real home addresses, which makes target selection easier.
Eyal Gruper, CEO of recovery firm RITREK, sums up the change: attackers understand they can’t always hack, so they beat.
The incident forces investors to strengthen personal security measures, pressures exchanges to tighten anti-money-laundering controls and drives the search for layered custody schemes that limit the risk of physical loss of keys.
The prosecution will seek severe sentences for the planning and the violence used; the next stage will be the formal request for imprisonment, a point that will force a review of custody, data privacy and industry response protocols.
