Twenty-five people, including six minors, were charged in Paris over a spate of kidnappings and attempted abductions in France’s cryptocurrency world, said the city’s public prosecutor office on Saturday, May 31.
“Eighteen people have been placed in pre-trial detention, three have requested a deferred hearing and four have been placed under judicial supervision,” the public prosecutor said, with the suspects between 16 and 23 years old.
The investigation centers on a May 13 kidnapping attempt targeting the daughter and grandson of the chief executive officer of crypto firm Paymium, carried out in broad daylight in Paris’ 11th arrondissement.
Prosecutors said the probe also covers “other unsuccessful plans,” including an initial failed attempt on the same targets the day before, and a disrupted operation near the western city of Nantes on Monday. Authorities said this week they had thwarted the Nantes abduction and detained more than 20 suspects in connection with that plot and another targeting crypto boss Pierre Noizat’s pregnant daughter and grandson. Footage of the attempted abduction that went viral on social media showed four masked men attacking Noizat’s daughter, her husband and their child in the French capital in mid-May. All three suffered light injuries and were taken to the hospital.
The suspects “were mostly born in the Paris region, one in Châtellerault, one in Senegal, one in Angola and one in Russia, between January 2002 and May 2009,” the prosecutor’s office said. This case is characterized by “very young profiles, lured by money and then caught up in a situation that is beyond them,” observed Ambroise Vienet-Legué, who is defending an 18-year-old suspect in the Nantes branch of the case, who is currently in custody.
Several kidnappings or attempted kidnappings have made headlines in France since the beginning of the year, from the abduction of David Balland, co-founder of Ledger, and his partner at the end of January to the Nantes attack. This case and the one on May 13 also have “links” to the May 1 kidnapping of the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, a source close to the investigation explained earlier this week. Among those arrested to date are “subordinates” and more senior “logistics” figures, but no instigators, according to sources close to the case.
In a sign that the cryptocurrency sector is under serious threat, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau .”brought together industry professionals in mid-May to “take joint measures to protect them.” Without giving details, the ministry mentioned “enhanced collaboration” between law enforcement and industry professionals, including “security checks of their homes by security officers from the national police and gendarmerie.”
