Cryptocurrency – French prosecutors in the city of Lyon have charged and detained seven people over the alleged kidnapping of a Swiss man for a cryptocurrency ransom.
Seven suspects were charged and taken into custody after investigating magistrates in Lyon questioned them.
The prosecutor’s office said they were being questioned for kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion by an armed gang.
Officers of the elite GIGN police unit freed one of the victims in a raid in the city of Valence, south-east France. Once the alarm was raised around 150 gendarmes were mobilised to find him. His abductors had been demanding a ransom be paid in cryptocurrency.
The Swiss police said the affair might have had its roots in a dispute over digital assets. They said they had contacted the French after having received a tip off from an anonymous source a day after the kidnapping.
The victim who lives in the Vaud canton of Switzerland had been seriously beaten up while he was held.
The French authorities have been dealing with a string of kidnappings and extortion attempts targeting the families of wealthy individuals dealing in cryptocurrencies.
In January kidnappers seized French crypto boss David Balland and his partner. Mr. Balland co-founded the crypto firm Ledger, valued at the time at more than US$1 billion.
Mr. Balland’s kidnappers cut off his finger and demanded a hefty ransom. He was freed the next day and his girlfriend was found tied up in the boot of a car outside Paris.
In May, the father of a man who ran a Malta based cryptocurrency company was kidnapped by four hooded men in Paris.
The victim, whose finger was also severed by the kidnappers and for whom a ransom of several million euros was demanded, was released 58 hours later during a raid by the security forces.
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