Vienna murder of 21-year-old Ukrainian crypto holder linked to forced wallet theft

Police in Vienna said the body of the young man was found shortly after 00:30 on November 26 in the back seat of a burnt-out black Mercedes S 350D with Ukrainian plates in the Donaustadt district, after residents reported a car fire under a railway overpass. An autopsy showed signs of severe blunt-force trauma and burns over about 80% of his body, and investigators believe he may have died from head injuries and suffocation or heat shock as the car interior was set alight with gasoline.

According to case details released by Austrian authorities and local media, the attack began earlier that night in the underground parking garage of a central Vienna hotel, where the victim was confronted by a 19-year-old fellow student. Witnesses reported a loud altercation, and a hotel guest alerted staff after discovering a pool of blood in the stairwell leading to the garage. Investigators say the victim was badly beaten there, forced into the Mercedes and then driven across the city while being tortured to reveal the passwords to at least two crypto wallets.

During this period, police say, funds were drained from his crypto accounts. Forensic work later identified withdrawals from the victim’s wallets, and when the suspects were detained, officers seized a large amount of cash. On that basis, investigators have described greed related to cryptocurrency holdings as the likely motive for the killing.

The attackers allegedly bought gasoline at a nearby station before driving to Marlen-Haushofer-Weg in Donaustadt. There, the victim was reportedly doused with fuel while crouched in the rear of the car and set on fire. Fire crews responding to the blaze discovered his body in the back seat; a melted fuel canister was later recovered as evidence of deliberate arson.

Two suspects, Ukrainian men aged 19 and 45, were identified from CCTV footage linked to a fight in the hotel garage and from movements around the gasoline purchase and the crime scene. Both left Austria immediately after the incident and were detained days later in Ukraine following an international alert. Authorities in Vienna have said they are cooperating with Ukrainian counterparts, and proceedings are expected to continue under Ukrainian jurisdiction.

Austrian privacy rules mean the victim’s name has not been officially released, but Ukrainian and Austrian outlets have identified him as 21-year-old student and crypto enthusiast Danylo Kuzmin, the son of a deputy mayor of Kharkiv. In Ukraine, local officials and media have confirmed that a senior city official’s son was killed in Vienna, and Kharkiv’s mayor has publicly referred to the case as a family tragedy while declining to comment on details.

Reports from Ukraine describe Kuzmin as financially well-off and active in digital assets, matching investigators’ references to sizable cryptocurrency holdings. After he was reported missing around the time of the attack, acquaintances and local commentators noted that at least two of his crypto wallets had been emptied, aligning with police statements about wallet withdrawals traced during the investigation.

Within the crypto community, the murder is being discussed as a particularly brutal example of a so-called “wrench attack” – a term used for physical assaults aimed at forcing victims to disclose keys or passwords. The Vienna case stands out because the alleged extortion was followed by hours of torture and the burning of the victim’s body inside a car, rather than a quick robbery or kidnapping. Austrian investigators have not used the wrench-attack terminology in official briefings, but their description of the sequence of events closely matches that pattern.

The killing comes only weeks after another high-profile death in Ukraine’s crypto scene. In mid-October, prominent crypto educator and trader Konstantyn “Kudo” Hanych died in circumstances that law enforcement classified as suicide. During an ongoing corruption scandal known as “Mindichgate,” imprisoned oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi has since claimed that Kudo was involved in money-laundering schemes tied to political figures, attempting to link the late trader’s name to alleged illicit flows through cryptocurrencies.

Those allegations have not been backed by public evidence from investigators. Coverage of Kolomoiskyi’s comments notes that he is himself under investigation for fraud and money laundering and remains in custody, and stresses that there is no official confirmation from law-enforcement agencies that Kudo took part in any corruption schemes connected to the scandal. For now, authorities continue to treat Kudo’s death and the Vienna murder as separate cases with different legal statuses and motives, even as both tragedies have drawn attention to the risks faced by visible participants in Ukraine’s crypto community.