Bitcoin tycoon and millionaire David Balland and his wife were kidnapped from their home by a group of criminals on January 21, demanding a ransom of $10 million.
The Gendarmerie Nationale de l'Intérieur (GIGN), France's elite tactical police unit specialized in hostage situations, was sent to find the couple.
Raiding a remote house some 65 kilometres away, near Châteauroux, GIGN found David Balland bloodied and bruised, with a finger missing.
Ten suspects, including nine men and one woman aged between 20 and 40, have been arrested. All have criminal records. Police are searching for other accomplices.
David Balland is the co-founder of French crypto company Ledger, a global leader in digital wallets and crypto asset vaults. The company is valued at over €1.3 billion and is one of France’s top 15 “unicorns,” private startups valued at over $1 billion. The company has over 700 employees across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Search efforts
According to the Paris prosecutor, early on January 21, armed criminals broke into the house of David Balland - a "reclusive genius" who lived in a mansion located on a plot of land of more than 3,000 square meters near a pine forest.
The kidnappers took David and his wife to another remote location to torture them and cut off part of his finger and sent it to their partner, the co-founder of Ledger.
They sent another video showing the torture and asked for $10 million in Bitcoin to be transferred to an electronic wallet.
"This is an extremely complex case," said General Ghislain Réty, head of the elite hostage rescue unit.
Police tracked the GPS of one of the kidnappers' cars and screened possible accommodation rented by the group through booking.com and Airbnb. Several homes were searched.
On the afternoon of January 22, special forces raided a house near Châteauroux, a detached rental property, and found Balland alive but injured with a "mutilated hand".
Two suspects were arrested. Another was arrested a few hours later. One of the suspects was a notorious drug trafficker from Marseille, a hub for drug trafficking.
Mr Balland's wife Amandine remains missing and police fear the panicked kidnappers may have decided to "dispose" of the hostages when their hopes of obtaining a ransom ...
As the hours passed, investigators received clear information that David Balland's wife was being held in the Étampes area of Essonne. Late on January 22, GIGN launched a rescue operation.
The businessman's wife was found tied up in the back of a van in a car park near the town centre, but was uninjured.
Six other suspects from the Paris area were arrested at the same time, most of them drug dealers. According to Le Parisien, police initially assessed that the kidnapping was carried out by groups of young criminals, but was "controlled remotely" by anonymous masterminds.
Some of the $10 million Bitcoin ransom was delivered in negotiations handled by police, but the majority has been confiscated and frozen.
Due to the sensitive nature of the case, national media have been asked to respect a news blackout while the search is ongoing.
The case has been transferred to a specialized inter-regional court in Paris and an investigation has been opened into "kidnapping and confinement in an organised gang to carry out a request" - a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
Wave of Violence Targets Bitcoin Millionaires
The incident sent shockwaves across the cryptocurrency world and came on the same day US President Donald Trump announced his intention to make the US the “artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency capital of the world” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Bitcoin, the world's largest and most popular cryptocurrency by market capitalization and often referred to as "digital gold," hit a record high last weekend at $109,000 ahead of Mr. Trump's inauguration.
On December 31, 2024, the father, mother, and sister of a French crypto influencer were also kidnapped and held for hours for ransom. The mother and sister were quickly freed, but the father was taken to a location more than 600 kilometers away. He was tied up, doused in gasoline, and locked in the trunk of a car.
French police have not yet commented on whether the two kidnappings are related.
Earlier this month, a 56-year-old man, the father of a prominent cryptocurrency influencer living in Dubai, was found dead in the trunk of a car.
The country's media reported that he was kidnapped for ransom because his millionaire son regularly posted videos online about profits from cryptocurrencies.
(Theo Telegraph)
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