Even the ex-boyfriend of the founder of OpenAI was hacked; crypto billionaires have become the number one target of “phy

For criminals, it is obviously faster and easier to force someone to reveal their 암호화폐currency wallet password than to rob them of all their cash or bank card PINs.

What’s worse is that the lifestyle of crypto enthusiasts is inherently “highly visible”: tweeting about their wealth, showing up at conferences, being mentioned in articles, using insecure Wi-Fi, or even just attending an industry event… all of these leave clues in the shadows, telling others which “crypto asset millionaire” is worth keeping an eye on.

Sam Altman’s ex-boyfriend was robbed in his home.

The streets near San Francisco’s Mission Dolores district are a community frequented by Silicon Valley’s capitalists and tech elites. Mark Zuckerberg once owned a $31 million mansion just around the corner. This recent burglary occurred in this neighborhood of tech moguls.

The surveillance footage from that day shows a man wearing a dark hoodie, sunglasses, and gloves, carrying a white cardboard box, slowly walking towards the door along the clean sidewalk. His steps were steady and natural, like that of a regular deliveryman.

The suspect as seen in the homeowner’s surveillance footage. (Image source: The New York Times)

Only one detail in the surveillance footage revealed the anomaly: when he approached the camera, he deliberately turned his head to the side, keeping his face in shadow, and the doorbell rang twice.

“Looking for Joshua, there’s a package that needs to be signed for.” The suspect’s voice was calm and showed no emotion.

The homeowner opened the door upon hearing the noise, and the suspect continued following the script: rummaging through his pockets, pretending not to find a pen, and casually asking, “Could I borrow one of your pens?” With such an ordinary action, he stepped into the house the moment the homeowner turned around.

The police later wrote in a restrained manner in their report: The suspect brandished a gun, bound the victim with duct tape, and threatened him to hand over access to his encrypted wallet.

The actual events were far more brutal than this official statement suggests. According to sources, the suspects did more than just threaten. After binding the victim, they turned on a hands-free phone and had another accomplice with a foreign accent read out the victim’s personal information line by line. Simultaneously, the gunman inside the house beat the victim to confirm he had given the “correct password.” This was a meticulously designed form of torture—ensuring the victim wouldn’t dare lie in extreme fear.

For a full 90 minutes, the suspect emptied all of the victim’s cold and hot wallets in this manner. The suspect made off with the phone and computer, ultimately transferring approximately $11 million in cryptocurrency before fleeing.

When the police arrived, the homeowner was covered in bruises but remained conscious.

But as we mentioned earlier, the residents of this neighborhood are no ordinary people. With media involvement, the victim’s identity came to light. The homeowner, 31-year-old Lachy Groom, is a former executive at the payment company Stripe and appears to be a billionaire. He is also the ex-boyfriend of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, with whom he had a low-profile relationship before Altman’s marriage in 2024.

Sam Altman and Lachy Groom pose for a photo in a social media post from 2014.

The house Lachy Groom currently lives in was purchased in 2021 from Sam Altman’s brother for $1.8 million. Media reports have confirmed that Joshua (the name the suspect initially used to refer to the delivery person who signed for the package), who also lives in the four-bedroom house, is an investor in Silicon Valley.

Therefore, this was clearly a planned and precisely targeted physical attack. The suspect obviously knew the homeowner’s name, address, daily routine, and even the assets that might be stored in the house.

The case gained widespread attention after Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator and another friend of the victim, posted surveillance video of the residence on social media. He wrote, “Time is of the essence, we must find him.” Although the tweet was quickly deleted, the discussion it sparked spread rapidly throughout San Francisco’s tech and crypto circles.

Fake hand grenade robbery of trading platform office

Bank robberies are very common, but robbing the office of a trading platform is probably a rare sight.

November in St. Petersburg is usually damp and colder than other months. On the evening of November 22, a 21-year-old man pushed open the door of a cryptocurrency exchange located in an apartment hotel building. There weren’t many people around.

He was dressed casually and carried a bulging bag, making him look more like a casual customer who came to do OTC exchange.

As soon as the door closed, he quickly pulled two realistic-looking “hand grenades” from his bag, which then exploded twice in the cramped space with a “bang.” Immediately afterward, a smoke grenade was lit, and acrid white smoke quickly spread, turning the entire office into chaos.

Through the thick smoke, his shouts were urgent and trembling: “Transfer all the crypto assets in the platform… to this wallet address!”

Fortunately, these simulated hand grenades exploded in mid-air like firecrackers, shattering the plastic pellets and making a crackling sound against the walls, but they were not fatal.

But the staff were trapped between their seats and the corner, unable to see if he had a real weapon or whether there was something more dangerous behind the smoke grenade. A few seconds felt like minutes. The computer screen flickered in the smoke, displaying the back-end asset balance, while only two sounds filled the air—the hissing of the smoke grenade and the suspect’s rapid breathing.

According to the police’s later description, the young man was from District 47 of Leningrad Oblast, was unemployed, and had no accomplices. He clearly premeditated his actions before storming into the office, and may have even confirmed the office hours and floor location beforehand. Local residents’ speculation was more straightforward: he may have suffered significant losses in the cryptocurrency market, and his attempt to “reclaim his losses” appeared both reckless and desperate.

Fortunately, the chaos lasted only a few minutes. Before the smoke had even dissipated, St. Petersburg police and National Guard troops had rushed up the building and quickly cordoned off the area. The suspect was subdued on the spot in the office, preventing further injury or an opportunity to force staff to make transfers. Two more unexploded replica grenades were also found in his backpack.

When explosives experts arrived at the scene, they confirmed that he was using “tactical props” from a live-action bluffing game. These devices cannot cause actual harm, but they can create sufficient intimidation and smoke effects. In other words, this was a robbery launched using “fake weapons” and “real panic,” but he was tackled to the ground by the police before the panic could take effect.

The 21-year-old man was subsequently investigated under Article 162 of the Russian Criminal Code (robbery) and remains in custody. Neither the Ministry of Internal Affairs nor local media have disclosed the specific name of the trading platform involved, but a publicly available map shows that a cryptocurrency exchange called Yzex was indeed located in the building where the incident occurred.

The smell of smoke lingered in the hallway until the next morning, and some marbles scattered by the explosion lay on the floor in a corner. It was an unprofessional, yet absurd, robbery, but it was enough to put those in the cryptocurrency industry, especially employees of trading platforms, on high alert.

Highway hijacking outside Oxford

In November, the days are short and the nights are long in England. The dampness in the Oxford countryside often sets in before dusk, clinging to the car windows like a thin mist. On the afternoon of the 4th, a car traveling from Oxford towards London was heading along the country road between Kidlington and Yarnton.

There were five people in the car: three women and two men. They were all traveling from the university town to London and were supposed to arrive before evening, but the atmosphere in the car was relatively relaxed just minutes before the attack.

Then the black BMW Saloon suddenly approached from behind. At first, no one paid any attention, assuming it was just the usual impatience of British drivers. But the next second, another blue Hyundai Ioniq cut in from the side, forcing them to slowly squeeze their cars to the side of the road. As soon as the cars stopped, several dark figures rushed out from the door of a silver Mercedes-Benz Vito parked nearby.

The moment the car door was violently flung open, a heavy sense of dread filled the air. The attackers, dressed entirely in black and hooded, uttered not a single unnecessary word; their movements were as if rehearsed countless times. In less than thirty seconds, they were already seated inside the victim’s car.

The location of the robbery in this case

The robbers forced the driver to turn and head towards a more secluded area near Five Mile Drive. The car was cramped and suffocating. Cellphones were taken one by one and thrown into the robbers’ bags, and shouts and suppressed sobs mingled in the small space. A woman tried to remain calm, while a man nodded repeatedly, almost instinctively obeying every command, just to avoid provoking the masked men in front of him.

The robbers’ targets were clear, far more professional than ordinary road robberies. They first stole a high-end watch worth £450,000; its weight and dial cut alone revealed its luxury. In addition, they also stole the mobile phones of the other terrified victims.

Then, a man who appeared to be the leader held up a phone in front of the victim: “Unlock your wallet. Now.” The victim had no choice but to enter his mnemonic phrase, verification code, and confirm the transfer, all while being watched by the robber. The victim’s fingers trembled slightly with fear, the screen’s light reflecting on his face, and sweat trickling down his cheek.

The entire process lasted a long 30 minutes, and ultimately approximately £1.1 million (about $1.44 million) of crypto assets were forced to be transferred to a designated wallet.

After the confirmation beep indicating the money had been transferred, the robbers said nothing more. They stopped the car, opened the doors, and pushed the five people out one by one. The location was the Five Mile Drive area of Oxford, surrounded by low-rise residential houses and the grey-blue light of the evening sky. The robbers then abandoned the car, got into another vehicle, and drove away so quickly that no one realized the ordeal was over.

The five victims stood on the roadside, their legs still trembling. One of them immediately dialed the police, his voice so shaky it was almost inaudible.

Over the next few days, police action was swift and intensive. Based on surveillance footage, phone records, and vehicle tracking, Thames Valley Police launched a simultaneous manhunt in London, Kent, and Birmingham. The black BMW, the blue Ioniq, and the silver Mercedes-Benz Vito became key targets of the investigation.

Within just a few days, four suspects have been arrested and are currently out on bail pending trial, but the police investigation is ongoing. This includes digital forensics, cryptocurrency flows, license plate recognition records, and comparison of extensive CCTV footage around the crime scene.

This type of crime has been 디파이ned as a “new type of organized high-value robbery” in an internal report by the British police.

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