There’s something uniquely agonising about having your cryptocurrency stolen. All transactions are recorded in a digital ledger, known as a blockchain, so even if someone takes your money and puts it in their own crypto wallet, it remains visible online.

“You can see your money there on the public blockchain, but there’s nothing you can do to get it back,” says Helen, who lost around $315,000 (£250,000) to thieves.

She likens it to watching a burglar pile up your prized possessions on the other side of an impassable chasm.

For seven years, Helen and her husband Richard (not his real name), both UK residents, had been buying and stacking up crypto coins called Cardano.

They liked the idea of investing in a digital asset that had the potential to rise dramatically in value, unlike funds saved in more conventional ways. They knew it was riskier, but they were careful to keep their digital keys safe.

But somehow hackers got into their cloud storage account, where they kept information about their crypto wallets and how to access them.

In February 2024, after a small test transfer, the criminals swiftly and silently transferred all the couple’s coins to their own digital wallets.

The couple then watched for months as their money was moved from one wallet to another, powerless to do anything. (The inherent contradiction with cryptocurrency is that all transactions are publicly trackable, but users can be publicly untraceable if they choose.)

Helen and Richard are not wealthy. She is a personal assistant, he is a composer, and they had high hopes for their Cardano investments.

“We’d been buying these coins for so long… We used every scrap of money we could find to buy more,” says Richard. “Aside from my parents’ deaths, this theft is the worst thing to happen to me.”

Ever since, Helen has been on a mission to recover their money. She obtained detailed reports from various police forces and the Cardano developers. Now, even though she has the criminals’ wallet addresses, there is nothing anyone can do to unmask them.

Their plan is to save up enough to engage private investigators to try to trace the hackers.

“It leaves you with a feeling of helplessness,” she says, “but I am going to keep trying.

An explosion in crypto crime

A survey carried out for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in August 2024, suggested that approximately 12% of British adults owned crypto-assets – equivalent to about seven million people.

Globally, it has been estimated that 560 million people are now crypto owners. But as ownership rose, so did theft. The pandemic ushered in a surge in the value of crypto coins and, with it, an explosion in attacks on the industry.

And 2025 was another bumper year for crypto criminals, with total thefts standing at more than $3.4bn (£2.5bn), according to investigators at blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. The annual figure has remained in the same ballpark since 2020.

Most of the money is being stolen through massive cyberattacks on crypto companies. For example, North Korean hackers swiped $1.5bn (£1.1bn) from crypto exchange Bybit in February 2025.

The losses in this case and the vast majority of others are covered by the deep-pocketed crypto firms, with little impact on individuals. But 2025 also saw an increase in the number of attacks on individual crypto investors.

Chainalysis research says these individual attacks rose from 40,000 in 2022 to 80,000 last year.

Hacking, scamming or coercing of individuals accounted for an estimated 20% of all crypto value stolen – estimated at $713m (£532m).

But the company adds that the number could be far higher, as not all victims will choose to report thefts publicly. When this happens, you could be left on your own.

Many thefts or scams in traditional finance are covered by banks or card companies. In the UK, you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service and may be compensated by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

“Crypto remains largely unregulated in the UK and high-risk,” says the FCA. “If something goes wrong, it is unlikely you will be protected so you should be prepared to lose all your money.”

A stark reminder of this comes if you search online for “Binance account hacked” – Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange with a reported 1.4m UK users – but the page on its website offering advice to victims of theft is blocked in the UK.

The company has not been accepting new UK clients since 2023 because it is not authorised by the FCA to operate. Yet criminals don’t care where victims are, and people are being targeted all over the world indiscriminately.

Chainalysis has described these attacks on individuals as the “under-documented frontier for crypto crime”.

They put the volume of crimes down to the number of people entering the crypto world as investors, as the value of coins has risen, and argue that improved security practices at major services could have pushed “attackers toward individuals perceived as easier targets”.

Then there is the fact that the more crypto you hold and the more public you are about it, the more likely you are to be targeted – small-time holders (or hodlers, as the community calls them) are far less likely to be affected.

Burglaries, muggings and ‘wrench attacks’

As for the thieves, they could be anywhere.

In October, blockchain researchers from Elliptic, a crypto analysis company, warned that North Korean state-sponsored hackers are increasingly targeting wealthy cryptocurrency owners. There are plenty of young scammers and hackers from other countries, too.

In December in the US, 22-year-old Evan Tangeman pleaded guilty to being part of a group of crypto thieves calling themselves the Social Engineering Enterprise, who are accused of stealing more than $260m (£194m) between October 2023 and May 2025.

Prosecutors allege they targeted the crypto-rich using hacked databases, tricking victims into thinking they were cryptocurrency exchanges, and persuading them to transfer coins.

Members of the gang, who were all young men mostly in the US, are said to have spent the stolen coins on private jets, expensive cars and luxury handbags that they would give away at nightclubs.

In some cases, prosecutors say, the gang organised home break-ins to steal hardware containing the keys to crypto stashes.

Burglaries and muggings have become so common that there is now a term for them in the crypto community – “wrench attacks” – so called because criminals have been known to threaten victims with spanners.

Last April, crypto criminals in Spain tried to force a man and woman to part with their cryptocurrency.

Spanish police said the man was shot in the leg and he, along with his partner, were held captive for several hours while the criminals tried to access their crypto wallets. Eventually, the woman was released, but her partner remained missing, with his body later found in woodland.

Five people were arrested in Spain in connection with the case, while four others in Denmark were charged.

There have been several similar cases in France, including one when an attempted kidnap was captured on video.

Source.. BBC

Lebara Nigeria has launched the Agent Registration Portal (ARP), a new digital onboarding platform designed to accelerate the expansion of its retail and point-of-sale (POS) network nationwide.

Through the Agent Registration Portal, Lebara aims to create awareness, build trust and credibility within the retail channel, create opportunities for Nigerians to register and become Lebara partners, and position the brand as a modern, digitally driven, and opportunity – focused telecom operator.

With the introduction of the Agent Registration Portal, alongside its earlier customer-focused digital tools, Lebara Nigeria is designed to empower SMEs, independent distributors, SIM sellers, and retailers nationwide by removing traditional barriers to entry and enabling compliant, digital-first onboarding at scale.

Also, positioning  itself as a digitally driven telecom entrant, focused on speed, compliance, and nationwide reach as it prepares for full-scale operations across the country.

The rollout comes as part of a national onboarding campaign running from January to March, 2026, targeting both low-scale retail agents and high-scale distributors.

Through the portal, Lebara aims to rapidly grow its digital and physical presence across Nigeria while ensuring all partners meet required compliance and verification standards

The Agent Registration Portal is accessible via the Lebara Nigeria website and allows prospective agents and distributors to complete the entire onboarding process online.

Once approved, partner locations are activated as Lebara POS outlets, trained and authorized to sell Lebara starter packs, data bundles, vouchers and other Lebara Nigeria products and services.

The launch builds on Lebara Nigeria’s earlier digital initiatives ahead of its full market entry.

Prior to the Agent Registration Portal rollout, the company introduced a Number Registration Portal, enabling prospective customers to select and reserve preferred phone numbers before the network goes live.

The service allows users to secure personalised numbers such as memorable dates, culturally significant digits, or easy-to-recall patterns through a simple online process, giving customers early control over their mobile identity.

The Agent Registration Portal onboarding process follows a structured flow from account creation and document upload to compliance checks, verification, approval, and activation. Applicants are required to submit details such as National Identification Number (NIN), valid government-issued ID, Tax Identification Number (TIN), and address information. Where all documentation is complete, onboarding can be completed within 30 minutes, after which applicants receive email confirmation and next steps.

Commenting on the launch, Mary O. Akin-Adesokan, Chief Operating Officer of Lebara Nigeria, said the portal is central to the company’s operational and growth strategy in the country.

“The Agent Registration Portal is a key part of our strategy to scale Lebara’s retail presence nationwide. It allows us to onboard partners faster, ensure full compliance, and provide both small retailers and large distributors with a transparent and reliable way to do business with Lebara.

“Together with our earlier Number Reservation Portal, it demonstrates our commitment to using digital innovation to simplify access, empower partners, and enhance the overall telecom experience,” she said.

Despite lingering regulatory uncertainty, Nigeria processed an estimated $92.1 billion in cryptocurrency transactions between July 2024 and June 2025, reaffirming its position as Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest crypto market, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The figure, published in PwC’s Nigeria Economic Outlook 2026 titled “Turning Macroeconomic Stability into Sustainable Growth”, shows that Nigeria received nearly three times the crypto transaction value recorded in South Africa over the same period.

PwC attributed Nigeria’s dominance to its large population, youthful and digitally savvy users, persistent inflation, and continued foreign exchange (FX) access constraints, which have pushed many individuals and businesses toward crypto and stablecoins as alternative financial channels.

The report noted that crypto adoption in Nigeria reflects both economic necessity and structural transformation in financial behaviour.

PwC said Bitcoin continues to dominate fiat-to-crypto purchases in Sub-Saharan Africa, accounting for 89 per cent of transactions in Nigeria and 74 per cent in South Africa, underscoring its role as a default hedge and entry asset in volatile or constrained financial environments.

It added that stablecoin usage is structurally higher in Nigeria, signalling reliance on crypto rails as an informal FX market and dollar-substitute channel.

However, PwC cautioned that the data reflects only centralised exchange activity and excludes peer-to-peer transactions and informal flows, suggesting that actual volumes may be significantly higher.

PwC projected that Nigeria is likely to retain its position as the region’s largest crypto market in 2026, driven by FX access challenges, inflation sensitivity, and sustained demand for stablecoins as a store of value and settlement mechanism.

The firm also noted that Nigeria had earlier processed about $59 billion in crypto transactions, largely driven by young, tech-savvy users, highlighting deepening adoption momentum.

“The rising usage of crypto, especially among Nigeria’s youth, underscores the urgent need to accelerate regulatory cohesion in the near term,” the report stated.

PwC identified several key issues that will shape Nigeria’s crypto landscape in 2026, including industry adoption and compliance challenges, licensing and regulatory frameworks, a structural shift in crypto taxation, capital flow management, and market surveillance.

On licensing and regulation, PwC observed that progress remains slow, with only two exchanges granted provisional approval so far.

This, it said, highlights capacity and sequencing challenges within the regulatory framework. The firm warned that the planned rollout of crypto-asset taxation could outpace supervisory readiness, raising concerns about effective enforcement without a fully operational licensing regime.

In terms of taxation, PwC disclosed that the new Tax and Tax Administration Acts, effective from 2026, will treat crypto profits as income taxed up to 25 per cent, replacing the previous 10 per cent capital gains tax.

This represents a significant increase in tax burden and complexity for crypto users. It also noted that Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) will face higher compliance and reporting obligations, raising operating costs for licensed platforms and potentially pushing more activity into informal or offshore channels