A $5 adjustable wrench, Face ID version. The xkcd comic already in 2009 mocked geeks who believe their encryption to be inviolable, since a well-equipped thug always ends up obtaining the password. Investor Evan Luthra experienced the mobile variation of this joke in Oxford, and he recounts for the first time how his exchange accounts were emptied in half an hour.
Nearly a million dollars has since been recovered. The trial will not take place before November 2027, a deadline that French victims of crypto-kidnapping know well.
Key Points
Five masked attackers used Luthra's face to open her phone and trading apps.
More than $2 million in crypto has left Binance and Gate, in addition to a luxury watch.
Binance returned $370,000, and a British court order allowed more to be frozen.
Only one suspect is charged at this stage, for a trial postponed for more than a year.
Face ID and five hooded people: thirty minutes to empty Binance and Gate
On November 4, 2025, Evan Luthra sits in a private car with four other passengers. According to his account to BeInCrypto, the vehicle suddenly turns towards an isolated road.
Five masked men board. They hit him and warn the group that they are only there for him.
The attackers start with his watch. It's a special edition Richard Mille, which the police estimate at 450,000 pounds.
Then they put his phone in front of his face. Face ID unlocks the device, and the exchange apps follow.
On Binance, just over $1.5 million in assets are leaving. Around $600,000 in ETH then leaves his Gate account. The kidnappers even tried to reach his bank accounts before getting out of the vehicle, half an hour later, in the Five Mile Drive area north of Oxford.
“There were five of them, so I gave them everything,” sums up Luthra.
No one needed to hack anything. A face, a phone on and connected accounts were enough.
Most major exchanges, however, offer a whitelist of withdrawal addresses, which blocks any sending to a wallet not registered in advance. An attacker can demand its deactivation on the spot. But each added step lengthens a scene that the kidnappers want as short as possible.
Binance returns $370,000 and Luthra keeps $10 million on the platform
Once his devices are collected, Luthra calls his contacts at Binance and MEXC. Part of the funds are frozen en route.
Binance returns approximately $370,000 to him. The rest is through an order made under the Proceeds of Crime Act, the British law on the proceeds of crime. According to Luthra, this is the first order of this type targeting Binance.
In total, he recovered just under a million dollars. On the other hand, he criticizes the police for having delayed giving him access to his phone, a delay which according to him would have increased the bill.
His gratitude to Binance took an unexpected form. In the wake of the record hack on October 29, estimated at $6.3 billion and attributed by the FBI to North Korea, he explained on X that he kept nearly $10 million on the platform for his daily trading.
Last year I was kidnapped and had over a million dollars stolen from my Binance account.
And right now, in the middle of the biggest hack crypto has ever seen, I still have almost $10 million in Binance.
Here's why. Part of this money was frozen after the theft. A few exchanges stepped in to help me, but Binance was the fastest and returned part of it to me. It cannot be forgotten.
For years, I have advised keeping your cryptos in your own wallet and not using exchanges for long-term storage. I still think so. These 10 million are used for my daily trades and investments.
Binance says it will cover all losses from the $6.3 billion hack. But it won't be the last. Hackers are getting smarter and smarter, and AI will make them much better. The entire industry needs to wake up.
Most people will see this as a reason to sell. I see this as a buying opportunity.
So be honest: are you withdrawing your funds or buying the dip?
Evan Luthra on X, October 30, 2026
The trial of Evan Luthra’s kidnappers postponed to 2027
Thames Valley Police confirmed the attack as early as November 2025. Four men aged 19 to 37 were initially arrested for theft and kidnapping, then released on bail.
In December, Abdul Malik Cali, 24, was arrested at Heathrow Airport. He is charged with five counts of conspiracy to commit theft. Five other people arrested in this case were on bail at the time, and Cali remains the only one charged to this day.
The amounts differ depending on the sources. The police first mentioned 1.1 million pounds in cryptos, then 1.5 million at the time of the indictment, when Luthra advanced more than 2 million dollars.
The trial has moved to November 2027. Luthra says he understands that the investigation is taking its time, but finds it very disappointing to wait another year.
