Franco-Moroccan Suspect Linked to Violent Crypto-Related Kidnappings in France

According to BRB officers, a 40-year-old Franco-Moroccan is behind the kidnapping and mutilation of David Balland, co-founder of Ledger, a cryptocurrency company, on January 21, near Vierzon (Cher), the abduction and bloody sequestration of D.B., father of a young online poker player who made a fortune in virtual currency investments, on May 1, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, the attempted kidnapping - filmed - of C.N., daughter of the CEO of a thriving cryptocurrency exchange company just twelve days later, still in the capital, in the 11th arrondissement, and finally a new kidnapping project in the Nantes area, in Couëron (Loire-Atlantique), targeting someone from the same circle, foiled at the last minute by the Paris judicial police, reports Le Parisien.

These police officers identified him as one of the masterminds of these various savage operations after examining the flows on cryptocurrency exchange platforms. He had demanded a significant ransom in cryptocurrency - 10 million euros, which "was to be sent to accounts in Morocco". Nearly 3 million euros had been paid as part of the negotiation with a member of Ledger’s technical management, in coordination with cyber gendarmes, but the majority of the cryptocurrencies had been seized and frozen. The BRB elements suspect the forty-year-old of being one of the links in a single criminal organization that, for several months, has been recruiting young, ultra-violent and reckless executants to commit these kidnappings.

On Monday and Tuesday, BRB investigators arrested about twenty suspects in connection with the various projects. They are mostly in their twenties (born between 2002 and 2009) and from the Paris region. Some of them attempted to kidnap a new target linked to a cryptocurrency mining company near Nantes on Monday morning, but they were stopped in their tracks.