Crypto Kidnapping Ring: Moroccan Mastermind Recruits Teens for High-Stakes Abductions

This gang specialized in the kidnapping of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs is behind the abduction of the father of a young man who made a fortune in cryptocurrency. A kidnapping orchestrated on Thursday, May 1, 2025, on Avenue du Maine, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. The kidnappers demanded an 8 million euro ransom for his release. A ransom they will not obtain. Furious, they will cut off the hostage’s finger. These five suspects, aged 18 to 26, will be arrested and then prosecuted, among other things, for extortion by an organized gang, and sequestration with torture or acts of barbarism committed by an organized gang. These men, "born in Algeria, Reunion, Le Chesnay and Levallois (two cities in the Paris region, editor’s note), had already been convicted for acts of violence or extortion, or of a different nature," said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau in a press release.

The judicial police are conducting extraordinary investigations and manage to identify the entire commando, a total of about forty men with disconcerting profiles. One of them is a teenager. He was about to take his French baccalaureate. Another suspect was already under electronic surveillance. A young actor whose career was promising is also among the alleged kidnappers. All the accused were recruited as easily as possible by the brains of the network. They often only know each other by their pseudonyms. During their custody, they claim to have succumbed to the promise of a few hundred or thousand euros without asking questions.

A few days later, near Nantes, the police neutralized eight members aged 17 to 19 who were about to kidnap an investor and his wife. The team had failed a few days earlier to kidnap a pregnant woman in the middle of Paris, the daughter of a businessman who was holding her 2-year-old child in her arms. The youngest of the attackers is only 16 years old, while the oldest is 17. Unlike the young people involved in the kidnapping of May 1, 2025, on Avenue du Maine, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, they expressed neither regrets nor remorse. The search of their phones also allowed the investigators to discover that they were planning other kidnappings. Their arrests thus thwarted their plan.

"Before being arrested, the members of the commando had other kidnapping projects in mind. They had in particular spotted a house on the Internet to sequester their next victim," says Georges Brenier, the TF1 journalist who conducted an investigation on the subject. Previously, they were involved in drug trafficking cases. The same gang kidnapped David Balland, co-founder of Ledger. He was mutilated during a sequestration. In the spring, it is the daughter of another crypto magnate who is attacked in the street. According to the victims, the criminals use the same methods: "same phrases, same amounts demanded, same spelling mistakes".