Crimestoppers announced on Thursday a reward of up to £10,000 for information about a violent home invasion in Solihull, near Birmingham, more than nine months after masked men assaulted a young couple and forced them to transfer a sizeable amount of cryptocurrency.

The charity published its appeal on its website and shared it on X.

A fourth suspect directed the raid by video call

West Midlands Police said the couple arrived home at Smith’s Wood, on the eastern outskirts of Birmingham, at about 5:20pm on Saturday, 13 December 2025. As the door swung open three men from a nearby car pushed their way in behind them.

The husband was beaten and left with what police described as “significant injuries.” His wife, who was then carrying the couple’s third child, was confronted with a knife.

Detectives believe the raid was planned and targeted. The intruders forced the couple to send cryptocurrency to a wallet controlled by the attackers. According to the Crimestoppers appeal, a fourth person, who was not inside the house, gave the three robbers instructions over a video call.

The gang also made off with a number of high-value watches and fled in what is thought to be a black BMW X3, the charity said.

Detectives believe all four suspects are in their 20s. They wore hoods and face coverings, and the only description released was of a Black man with a small diagonal scar below his left eyebrow.

Anonymity pledged to tipsters

The reward is available only for information given directly to Crimestoppers that leads to an arrest and conviction, the independent charity said. Callers are never identified and IP addresses are not traced, according to the organization. No tipster is asked to appear in court, a promise Crimestoppers says it has kept for about four decades.

“Four people planned this and four people know exactly what happened that evening,” said Alan Edwards, the charity’s West Midlands regional manager.

Edwards appealed to anyone who was told about the attack afterward, anyone who saw a friend or relative suddenly come into unexplained cash, and anyone who saw the BMW in the area that Saturday.

Tips can be submitted via 0800 555 111 or the charity’s online form, with a reward code requested when making first contact.

France logged 77 kidnapping and extortion cases or attempts by June

So-called wrench attacks, in which victims are physically assaulted to force them to hand over their cryptocurrency keys, have shifted toward victims’ homes. The label captures the dynamic that sets them apart: once the person holding the keys is physically coerced, the technical safeguards around a wallet offer little protection. Cryptopolitan reported that the first-half tally included 20 home invasions, compared with one a year earlier.

The epicenter is France. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the country had recorded 77 crypto-linked kidnapping, detention and extortion cases or attempts by the end of June, compared with 45 for the whole of 2025. Of 52 verified wrench attacks worldwide between January and June, 33 hit France.

In August, Cryptopolitan reported that a jury at Inner London Crown Court found five men guilty over the 52-hour captivity and torture of two French crypto millionaires, who were held for a $150,000 ransom. The verdict showed such attacks are not confined to France, and that they can end in convictions once suspects are identified and brought to trial.

Just days before the Solihull appeal, Béthune prosecutors opened an organized-extortion case after a family near Lens was bound by four hooded men and the father was forced to transfer €40,000 in crypto. The Béthune case is only days old, and the Solihull appeal is now live — the next developments to watch in a trend that climbed steeply over the first half of the year.