French government to meet Crypto-CEOs after series of brutal kidnappings

Bruno Retailleau, the French Minister of the Interior, has scheduled an urgent meeting with a number of crypto CEOs. He wants to explore how France can prevent the growing threat of crypto kidnappings in the future.

Family members of crypto millionaires are being kidnapped and forced to contact their son, daughter or brother in order to transfer their crypto immediately. The press is covering multiple stories at the moment.

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Gangnam

In 2023, Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district (the one from the famous song, yes) was shocked by a brutal robbery-murder. Three men kidnapped a 48-year-old South-Korean woman and tortured her to gain access to her digital coins, which were worth around $4 million; her body was later buried.

By now, the trend of crypto kidnappings has spread to Europe and is especially rampant in France. The French government now wants to do something about it and decided to invite crypto CEOs to find a way to reduce crypto crime in the future.

Last Tuesday, the daughter and grandson of a French crypto entrepreneur narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt by armed men in broad daylight in the center of Paris. The whole ordeal was filmed an posted on social media.

The woman is the daughter of the CEO of Paymium, a well-known French crypto platform.

Earlier this month, criminals kidnapped a man to force his crypto millionaire son to pay a ransom. Police arrested seven people after a raid to free the man.

Back in January, French crypto boss David Balland, co-founder of crypto company Ledger, was kidnapped. When he refused to cooperate, criminals cut off his finger.

“I will assemble business people working in cryptocurrencies, and we have a few of those in France, at the interior ministry to work with them on their security,” Retailleau said, “and so that they become aware of the risks”.