CNN
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Passers-by helped to foil the attempted kidnapping by armed assailants of the daughter and grandson of a French cryptocurrency boss in Paris, in a brazen daytime attack that was caught on camera.
The incident prompted Paymium, the Crypto firm owned by the father of the woman targeted, to demand “protections” for companies in France’s cryptocurrency sphere.
Tuesday morning’s attack in Paris’s 11th district is the latest in a string of violent incidents targeting figures in France’s burgeoning crypto industry, including two attacks in recent months and at least five since 2023.
Four masked men attacked the daughter, her partner and their child in the French capital, police sources told French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Video footage shows three masked men jump out of a white van with branding from the Chronopost delivery company. The woman and her partner fight the attackers and loud screams for help are heard. Speaking to BFMTV, one witness said the assailants tried to “pull a young woman by force” into the waiting vehicle.
The woman can be seen grabbing a gun off one of the masked men and throwing it into the street. The weapon, which was later recovered from the scene, turned out to be a fake, sources told BFMTV.
The screams attract the attention of passersby, who intervene, one of them armed with a fire extinguisher.
“I saw passersby saying to stop. A man went out into the street with a fire extinguisher to try to make these people leave,” a witness told French broadcaster BFMTV.
Eventually the assailants give up, the three men jump back into their van and the fourth suspect – the driver – makes a getaway.
Another woman who witnessed the scene told BFMTV, “I went out into the street and saw this man lying on the ground with a pistol next to him, quite bloody.”
Once the attack was over, the victims were helped by people on the street. All three of them sustained light injuries and were treated in hospital, BFMTV reported. The woman, who according to the news outlet was five months pregnant, was treated for shock, while her partner’s face was covered in blood.
The woman in the footage is the daughter of the CEO and co-founder of Paymium, a French cryptocurrency exchange platform, according to AFP.
France’s Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced Wednesday he would hold a meeting with cryptocurrency entrepreneurs to discuss security in light of the spate of attacks, according to AFP.
In the wake of the attack, Paymium released a statement calling for authorities to “immediately adopt measures to reinforce the protection of collaborators of companies in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.” The firm thanked Retailleau for agreeing to meet with Paymium, to “further discuss all these matters.”
The company also said it was “extremely saddened” by Tuesday’s attack and extended its support to the families of the victims.
No arrests have yet been made in relation to the incident, CNN understands. The Paris prosecutor’s office told CNN that it has opened an investigation into offenses of attempted arrest, abduction, kidnapping or arbitrary detention committed by an organized gang, aggravated violence and participation in a criminal association.
Chronopost said that it did not believe the van involved in the attempted kidnapping was from its company, but rather an attempt to mimic its branding. “Noting the absence of vehicle theft within our company fleet and given the non-compliant markings visible on the images of the vehicle used, everything suggests at this stage that we are dealing with an impersonation of our brand,” the company wrote on X.
The attack on Tuesday follows the abductions of other cryptocurrency figures in France.
On May 1, the father of a cryptocurrency entrepreneur was kidnapped in Paris’s 14th district and held for ransom. Police officers freed the victim, who was missing a finger, two days later on May 3. Five suspects were arrested in or near the house where the victim was being held, as well as two others the following day. Two of them were later cleared.
In January, David Balland, a co-founder of French crypto firm Ledger, had his hand mutilated after he and his wife were kidnapped from their home in central France. They were freed after a police operation. Part of the ransom of 10 million euros ($11.2 million) in cryptocurrency demanded by the kidnappers was paid, but “almost all of the cryptocurrency was traced, frozen, and seized,” BMFTV reported, citing the public prosecutor.
