Fearing that the kidnappers would cut another finger of their hostage or worse, the French police commander ordered his officers – with a radio order “Go” – to search the house where he suspected that the father of a rich entrepreneur in cryptocurrencies was detained.
Fabrice Gardon, director of the Paris judicial police, then waited anxiously in the headquarters of his unit, in the north of the French capital, the code word used to point out that a hostage had been released.
«Jackpot!»
With seven suspects in police custody, the police commander detailed in radio interviews on Monday 58 hours of drama, mutilation and ultimately relief that marked the last abduction in France of people working in the cryptomonnai sector.
The victim was the father of a man who made a fortune in the cryptocurrencies, said the prosecution.
The kidnappers carrying hoods rushed into a van when he left his Parisian house to walk his dog last Thursday morning, said Gardon. Passers -by alerted the police.
At the microphone of RTL, he confirmed information from the French media that the kidnappers cut one of the hostage fingers. He indicated that the kidnappers had sent his son a video of the mutilation and another video of his father tied up, and that they had asked for a ransom of several million euros.
On Saturday evening, the police found traces of the gang in a house in Essonne, south of Paris, where the investigators thought that the man was detained.
“We arrived a few minutes before a new ultimatum where the victim could have undergone new mutilation,” said Gardon.
He gave the green light to attack a research and intervention brigade (BRI) of the police. He then followed their progress by radio from the headquarters of the judicial police.
“After a few moments, the BRI chief said on the radio, according to our code – Jackpot! In our jargon, that means: “Everything is fine, we have released hostage”, “he said on France Info.
“This is obviously a great relief,” he added.
The prosecution revealed that the police had arrested four people in or near the house where the man was selected prisoner, and a fifth person behind the wheel of a vehicle that would have been used for the alleged abduction.
Two other suspects were arrested on Sunday.
The police investigation relates to a whole series of possible charges, including an abduction “with torture or act of barbarism”.
In January, a co -founder of the French Society of Cryptomonnaies Ledger, David Balland, had also been kidnapped with his wife at their home in Cher, in the center of France.
The police said that they had made ten arrests and that the alleged captors had asked for a ransom in cryptocurrency from another co -founder of Ledger.
A raid of the intervention group of the National Gendarmerie (GIGN), a French elite unit specializing in hostage -taking, made it possible to release Mr. Balland the next day, followed the next day by the Liberation, still by the GIGN, of his wife, found tied up in a vehicle, said the police.
