A mother and her son have been freed after a 20-hour ordeal linked to a wave of violent crypto-related abductions in France, highlighting growing criminal extremity targeting digital assets.
A mother and her ten-year-old son have been freed after being held for about 20 hours in what French investigators believe was a cryptocurrency-linked ransom plot, underscoring a wave of violent abductions that has alarmed authorities and the digital assets industry alike. Counter-terrorism officers from the GIGN stormed a hotel room in Val-de-Marne at around 06:00 local time on Tuesday, rescuing the pair unharmed after they were seized from their home in Burgundy on 13 April, according to franceinfo.
The kidnappers had demanded several hundred thousand euros from the boy’s father, who is reported to be a cryptocurrency entrepreneur. He did not pay, and officers arrested at least four suspects at the scene, although officials have not identified those detained. The case came just days after another suspected crypto-related home invasion in Anglet, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, where masked men searched for a business owner and left empty-handed after stealing jewellery.
French media and recent court cases suggest the country has become a particular flashpoint for this kind of crime. In February, police rescued a magistrate and her mother after they were held for around 30 hours in a cryptocurrency ransom case, later arresting six people including a minor. Forbes has reported that France accounted for the majority of known physical attacks on crypto holders globally earlier this year, while a separate industry timeline has documented more than 30 such kidnappings and assaults in France since 2017.
The violence has often targeted relatives as much as the investors themselves, with children and elderly family members increasingly used as leverage. French authorities are also confronting the broader problem of leaking customer data and criminal groups that specialise in forcing digital-asset owners to hand over access or cash, a pattern that has produced some of the most brutal incidents in Europe, including the mutilation of Ledger co-founder David Balland last year.
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Source: Noah Wire Services
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