French police saved the father of a rich cryptocurrency entrepreneur during a night raid after he was taken hostage to obtain a ransom.
This is the last alleged criminal attempt in the country to extort people involved in the management of digital assets.
The man was removed Thursday morning in Paris, the prosecution said on Sunday.
“The victim turned out to be the father of a man who made a fortune in cryptocurrencies, and the incident was accompanied by a ransom request”said the press release, without giving their names or other details on their identities.
Police investigators locate the hostage in a house in Essonne, south of Paris, from where it was rescued on Saturday evening, said the prosecution.
Five suspects arrested by the police
He was treated for his injuries, hostage takers notably cut one of the man’s fingers.
The police arrested five people – four of them were in or near the house where the man was selected in captivity, while the fifth was behind the wheel of a vehicle that would have been used for the alleged abduction, said the prosecutor’s office.
He added that the police investigation envisaged a whole series of possible criminal charges, including the removal “With torture or act of barbarism”.
In January, one of the co -founders of the French Society of Cryptomonnaies Ledger, David Balland, had also been kidnapped with his wife at their home in the Cher region, in the center of France.
Police had indicated having carried out ten arrests and that the alleged captors had asked for a ransom in cryptocurrency from another co -founder of Ledger.
A raid of the national gendarmerie intervention group (GIGN), a French elite unit specializing in hostage -taking, had made it possible to release David Balland the next day, followed the next day by the Liberation, still by the GIGN, of his wife, found in a vehicle.
