Man loses Ledger wallet and €5,000 in new crypto kidnapping in France

A young man has become the latest victim of a wave of crypto-related kidnappings in France that have continued despite multiple arrests and measures to improve security.

The abduction near Paris, which resulted in the loss of a cryptocurrency hardware wallet and a sum of fiat money, was followed by a kidnapping attempt in Normandy, foiled by the French police at the last minute.

French couple targeted by violent crypto kidnappers

A 23-year-old man has been kidnapped and held captive in the latest of a string of attacks on crypto owners and entrepreneurs in France. The criminals released the victim only after his partner fulfilled their demands for ransom.

The assault, which highlights a worrying phenomenon that French authorities have been struggling to deal with, took place in Maisons-Alfort, a commune in the Val-de-Marne department of the Grand Paris metropolitan area.

Last Tuesday morning, the young couple left their home to do errands. They split when the man remained in the car to find a parking spot, the Le Parisien daily detailed in a report on Thursday, quoted by the French crypto news outlet Journal du Coin.

A few moments later, while still shopping, his girlfriend received a message from her partner explaining he won’t be able to join her due to an unforeseen professional matter. Then she returned home alone, where the true reason for his disappearance became apparent.

The woman accepted a video call from her boyfriend’s phone number, but instead of him talking, another man appeared on the screen, stating that her boyfriend would only be released if she followed his orders.

Then the criminal told her to put a Ledger wallet in a bag, supposedly holding an undisclosed amount of cryptocurrency, along with €5,000 in cash ($5,750) and wait outside her home.

According to a source close to the investigation into the “kidnapping and unlawful confinement by an organized crime,” launched by the Val-de-Marne police, the perpetrators were very well informed about the couple’s finances and routines. The unnamed official also revealed:

“Violence was used to make him talk.”

Later in the afternoon, an accomplice of the kidnappers came to the house and collected the bag. The abducted man was able to call his girlfriend around 5 p.m. on his way home after he had been released in the neighboring town of Créteil.

“This is a sensitive case,” added the source familiar with the kidnapping case, which is not the first one in France lately, but declined to provide more information about the victim or the extorted cryptocurrency.

France is plagued by daring crypto kidnappings

The report about last week’s incident in the Greater Paris area coincided with the news of another crypto-related kidnapping attempt in Normandy, thwarted only thanks to the timely intervention of law enforcement officers who arrested five suspects before they could fulfil their plan.

On June 18, the French radio broadcaster Europe 1 unveiled that a month earlier, a 22-year-old cryptocurrency trader and his 46-year-old mother alerted the French police about a disturbing message indicating they were being followed by the would-be kidnappers.

Investigators were able to establish that their home had been placed under surveillance while their car had been tracked with a GPS device by a criminal group that intended to abduct them and force the young man to empty his digital wallet.

The two attacks against ordinary French citizens follow a series of similar assaults on prominent crypto figures in the past few months, including the kidnapping of Ledger co-founder David Balland and the failed abduction of the daughter and grandson of crypto exchange Paymium’s CEO.

To deal with the crisis, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau summoned crypto bosses in mid-May to discuss their security, and French lawmaker Paul Midy submitted a bill aimed at improving their privacy.

Despite charging 25 people so far and the arrest of an alleged mastermind in Morocco, the French government has yet to explain and put an end to the criminal trend.

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