FILE – An worker watches an digital signboard displaying the costs of Bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies on the lounge of Bithumb cryptocurrency trade in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 21, 2024.
Ahn Younger-joon/AP
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Ahn Younger-joon/AP
PARIS — French police rescued the daddy of a rich cryptocurrency entrepreneur in a nighttime raid after he was taken hostage for ransom, the newest alleged felony effort in France to extort folks concerned within the administration of digital property.
The person was kidnapped Thursday morning in Paris, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned Sunday.
“The sufferer turned out to be the daddy of a person who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, and the incident was accompanied by a ransom demand,” its assertion mentioned, with out giving their names or different specifics about their identities.
Police investigators situated the hostage in a home within the Essonne area south of Paris, from which he was rescued on Saturday evening, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
It mentioned he was handled for accidents however gave no particulars. French media reported that the alleged hostage-takers lower off one of many man’s fingers.
Police detained 5 folks — 4 have been in or near the home the place the person was held captive, whereas the fifth was on the wheel of a car thought to have been used for the alleged abduction, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.
It mentioned the police investigation is an array of attainable felony fees, together with kidnapping “with torture or a barbaric act.”
In January, police mentioned a co-founder of French crypto-wallet agency Ledger, David Balland, was additionally kidnapped along with his spouse from their dwelling within the area of Cher of central France.
Police mentioned they made 10 arrests and that the alleged kidnappers demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency from one other of Ledger’s co-founders.
A raid by France’s elite Nationwide Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit that makes a speciality of hostage conditions freed Balland the following day, adopted the day after that by the liberation, once more by the GIGN, of his spouse, discovered tied up in a car, police mentioned.
