Crypto Tycoon’s Nightmare: Violent Brussels Kidnapping Exposes Dark Underworld of Digital Currency Crime

It is difficult for Stéphane Winkel to rebuild his life after the kidnapping of his wife last December. "I feel less at ease than before. I’m always very careful where I go and I always keep an eye on everything around me. I pay attention to license plates, to vans. Before, I thought I was in absolute freedom. Now, I know I’m not," he confides to France Télévisions, who met him in a rented apartment in Brussels.

The kidnapping dates back to December 2024. Just before Christmas, an ultra-violent gang specializing in the sequestration of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs arrived in a residential neighborhood of Brussels and kidnapped Stéphane Winkel’s wife. That day, this cryptocurrency tycoon heard women’s screams. He went out and saw a van. "It took off at full speed. I managed to open the door. But I ended up on the ground. As I was on the ground, I just saw my wife’s shoe in front of me. And then I realized that it was not an ordinary person who had been kidnapped, but my wife. And then the world collapsed. It’s a black hole, the heartbeat. For a few seconds, I’m KO," he recounts.

The kidnappers then contacted the entrepreneur and demanded 10 million euros, threatening his entire family. Alerted, the police pursued the criminals. They ended their flight in a ditch, where the wife was found injured but alive. She had broken ribs, bruises everywhere... The same gang kidnapped David Balland, co-founder of Ledger. He was mutilated during a sequestration. In the spring, it was the daughter of another crypto tycoon who was attacked in the street. According to the victims, the criminals use the same methods: "same phrases, same amounts demanded, same spelling mistakes."

In July, the attackers of Winkel’s wife were sentenced to twelve years in prison in Belgium. The arrest of the alleged mastermind of this series of ultra-violent kidnappings took place in Morocco. Since the kidnapping of his wife, Stéphane is no longer the same. His daily life is marked by constant fear.