As cryptocurrency market capitalisation has outpaced the development of robust regulatory oversight, a growing number of illicit actors are increasingly exploiting this gap. These criminals combine traditional nerve‑gathering tactics—such as fake exchanges and social‑engineering schemes—with sophisticated hacking tools that target smart‑contract vulnerabilities, exchange APIs and cold‑storage wallets. The resulting breaches often involve large‑scale siphons of digital assets, amplified by alarming cases of real‑world violence in pursuit of physical access to servers and storage hardware. _2_ The financial damage reported from these schemes has risen sharply, with a recent audit highlighting a $700 million loss across multiple victimised entities. By layering fraudulent on‑chain transactions across mixers and privacy‑enhancing protocols, attackers obscure provenance and redirect funds through “tumblers” that erase audit trails. At the same time, sophisticated phishing campaigns use deep‑fake audio and tailored messaging to coerce insiders into revealing private keys or authorising wallet transfers to numbers controlled by attackers. In high‑profile incidents, armed intrusions into corporate facilities have been documented, underscoring the multi‑faceted nature of modern crypto‑crime. _3_ Mitigating these threats requires a concerted pipeline of technical, procedural and legal solutions: implementing hardware‑based multi‑factor authentication, enforcing role‑based access controls, and deploying blockchain forensics to trace suspicious movements. Regulatory bodies across multiple jurisdictions have begun to draft clearer compliance standards for exchanges and custodians, and law‑enforcement agencies are coordinating cross‑border investigations that leverage cryptographic evidence. While the technology employed by criminals continues to evolve, the industry’s response demonstrates a growing commitment to safeguarding investor confidence and maintaining market integrity.