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Crypto investor, 21, burned alive in latest horror killing after couple ‘tortured to death & encased in concrete’
The student was allegedly tortured before being burnt to death inside his family's carGemma Scerri
Published: 11:36, 5 Dec 2025
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Updated: 11:49, 5 Dec 2025
A CRYPTOCURRENCY investor has been tortured and killed after he was allegedly lured into a trap over his fortune.
Ukrainian student Danilo Kuzmin’s body was found burned in the backseat of a Mercedes in the Donaustadt district of Vienna.
Danilo Kuzmin, 21, was murdered in ViennaCredit: NewsflashHe was allegedly tortured before being burnt to death in his family car.
The 21-year-old was the son of Sergey Kuzmin – the deputy mayor of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
It is understood that Danilo lived and studied in Vienna.
His family and a close acquaintance filed missing persons reports after he suddenly stopped answering his phone.
Police say the case was largely solved when investigators identified two Ukrainian suspects aged 19 and 45.
The pair were arrested in Ukraine on November 29 under international warrants, three days after Danilo’s body was found.
Cops worked alongside Ukrainian authorities and Europol to find the alleged culprits.
Both Austrian and Ukrainian media have reported the younger suspect studied at the same university as Danilo.
CCTV footage from the underground car park at the luxury Sofitel hotel on November 25 showed several men surround the victim, with witnesses later reporting a large blood stain in the stairwell.
According to forensic experts, Danilo’s body was about 80 per cent burned.
His corpse showed massive blunt force trauma, including head injuries and broken teeth.
Investigators believe he died from suffocation or heat shock.
Police say Danilo was forced into the back seat of his family’s Mercedes and driven to the garden area in Donaustadt.
The vehicle was allegedly set alight using petrol.
Emergency services only discovered his body after firefighters extinguished the flames, with experts ruling out a technical fault because the diesel-powered car had been doused in petrol.
Officers recovered a melted fuel canister from the rear seat and traced it to a Vienna petrol station.
CCTV from the station allegedly shows one of the suspects buying two cans of petrol prior to the killing.
Austrian police have alleged that sizeable amounts vanished from Danilo’s cryptocurrency wallets around the time of the attack, while one of the detained man was found with a large amount of US dollars.
Head of Vienna’s state criminal office, Colonel Gerhard Winkler, said investigators were assuming a financial motive and had ruled out any political background.
Ukrainian media reported Danilo had been kept in the vehicle for several hours and allegedly tortured until he revealed access codes for his crypto accounts.
After his confession, police believe the car was set on fire.
The suspects were arrested in the port city of Odessa a day after returning to the country.
The KORD special unit assisted in their detainment.
A court ordered both men be held for 40 days.
The men will face prosecution in Ukraine, after Austrian authorities agreed to transfer the case.
Danilo’s alleged murder comes after a Russian crypto millionaire and his wife were found buried encased in concrete after being kidnapped and forced to watch each other be tortured.
The pair vanished in October, and were found dumped in the Dubai desert, after the alleged killers – all Russian nationals – attempted to access Novak’s £380million fortune.
Finding his crypto wallets empty, the couple were stuffed into plastic bags,
Novak had previously been convicted of fraud in 2020 and served six years in a general regime colony.
He allegedly conned investors from China, the Middle East, and other countries, raising around $500million (£380million) with promises of major tech partnerships.
The couple were murdered after alleged killers found Novak’s accounts to be empty.
