Three Men in France Suspected of Tying Up 74-Year-Old to Extort His Son's Crypto Assets, Torture for Nearly 16 Hours before Releasing Hostage upon Realizing 'Wrong Person'

On February 3, DLNews reported that French police have arrested three men in their 20s charged with kidnapping and torturing a 74-year-old man in an attempt to extort $3.5 million worth of cryptocurrency from his son. Officials told reporters the victim endured nearly 16 hours of abuse at the group’s hands. French outlet Actu 17 noted police said the three men kidnapped the unnamed elderly man from his Valence, Isère (southeastern France) home in the early hours of January 25. They forced him into a car and took him to a backroom of a bar in Valence, where the attackers allegedly filmed themselves torturing him. The group then sent the torture video to the man’s son via encrypted messages, demanding an unspecified amount of crypto as ransom. When they learned the son was not the crypto millionaire they’d mistakenly believed—just a web developer with little crypto—they released the victim at 11 p.m. the same day, pushing him out of the car on the roadside. Crypto-related kidnappings and other violent attacks are on the rise worldwide, with France seeing a particularly sharp increase. Certik data shows the country reported 19 so-called “wrench attacks” (extorting crypto via violent threats) last year. French authorities also successfully rescued Ledger co-founder David Balland and his wife that year—they’d been kidnapped by criminals trying to extort ransom.