Robbers Tortured Swedish Family for Crypto - Got Pokémon Cards Instead

HALLSBERG - Three people with immigrant backgrounds have been sentenced to long prison terms after a brutal, hours-long robbery of a Swedish family in a country house outside Hallsberg in central Sweden. The robbers were after cryptocurrency. They never found any. Instead they left with a Pokémon card collection worth 65,000 kronor, jewellery and 100,000 kronor drained from a PayPal account.

It began on the morning of January 13 at a house in Väla, near Vretstorp. Two of the men wore high-visibility vests and looked like workmen on a call-out. When the father opened the door, he assumed they were from the power company.

They forced their way in, overpowered him and pushed him onto a sofa, taping his hands and feet. The men were armed with a pistol and a knife. Upstairs, the family's adult son woke to the sound of his father screaming. Within minutes he too had been overpowered.

Hunting for Crypto

The son had spent years building an online gaming channel that earned him money and a following in gaming circles. He also collected Pokémon cards. The robbers appear to have been told he held significant crypto assets as well.

One of the men sat down at his computer while the others tried to force him to hand over passwords. When he could not or would not, the violence escalated. He was tied to a chair, beaten with fists and the pistol, and had a finger bent back until it broke. A gun was pointed at his head several times.

At one point a robber doused him with lighter fluid, held up a lighter and threatened to set him on fire. The father was threatened with being shot in front of his son. The mother, who was at work, was dragged into the threats too - the men said they knew where she was.

During the robbery, one of the men was on the phone with another person who, according to the father, urged them to use more violence. The court said this pointed to more people being behind the attack than those inside the house.

Banks Blocked the Transfers

Despite forcing out his login details, the robbers were stopped by the banks' security systems. They did get into his PayPal account and moved 100,000 kronor to another recipient. Then they went through the house, taking the mother's gold and silver jewellery, the son's wallet, a car key - and the Pokémon collection. The investigation showed they already knew about the cards before they arrived.

The ordeal lasted from just before 9 a.m. until about 12:30 p.m. The men fled in the family's BMW. The father later reached a knife he had hidden by a window, cut himself free and released his son, who called the police.

The getaway did not go to plan. A couple out walking noticed a stranger driving the family's car. Moments later it skidded into a ditch. Three men climbed out and were picked up by a second car, reportedly driven by a dark-haired woman with a ponytail. She has never been identified.

The Woman Behind the Plan

DNA on the duct tape and phone data led police to two of the men, who were remanded in custody in March. A central figure in the case was 28-year-old Lydia Abderrazek. According to the Örebro District Court, she helped plan the robbery as early as December 2025, sharing details under the alias "Paddan" about the son's finances, his Pokémon cards, his possible crypto holdings, the family's alarm systems and the fact that he was almost always at home.

She denied wrongdoing, claiming the chats were "just talk" about a possible burglary. The court rejected that, noting that she herself had said the son was nearly always home - hardly the profile of a quiet break-in.

The two men, 23-year-old Liam Biloff and 37-year-old Deya Kawthar, also denied the charges. Biloff said he had slept all day after a party in Uppsala, yet his phone downloaded a train ticket app at 1:04 p.m. that day. Kawthar told a new story at trial about partying in a rented cabin outside Örebro, which the court dismissed as an obvious after-the-fact construction. After the robbery, Kawthar had also asked a shop about the value of Pokémon cards.

Six Years Each

On October 27, the court convicted Biloff and Kawthar of aggravated robbery, aggravated vehicle theft and unlawful deprivation of liberty, sentencing each to six years in prison. Abderrazek was convicted of aiding and abetting aggravated robbery and received three years. She is already serving a prison sentence for other crimes, and the court also took earlier convictions into account for both men.

The three must jointly pay the family 502,800 kronor in damages, including 65,000 kronor for the stolen cards. A third man who was inside the house, the person giving orders by phone and the woman who drove the getaway car have still not been identified.

Source: Samnytt