Ten people, nine men and one woman, were arrested in the investigation into the kidnapping and sequestration of the co-founder of a company specializing in cryptoassets, Ledger, and his partner, the Paris prosecutor announced on Thursday.
A judicial investigation opened on Friday
The co-founder of the company, David Balland, released Wednesday by the GIGN, was hospitalized for a “mutilation of the hand”, said Laure Beccuau, public prosecutor, during a press conference in Paris, specifying that A judicial investigation would be opened on Friday, in particular for “kidnapping and sequestration by an organized gang”, “acts of torture or barbarity” as well as “extortion with weapons”.
The ten people in police custody are between 20 and 40 years old and come from all over France, the prosecutor said.
Most were known to the courts for common law crimes, but not for facts related to organized crime, according to Ms. Beccuau.
They are suspected of being involved in the kidnapping and sequestration of David Balland and his partner.
-The first was sequestered in Châteauroux, in Indre. Two suspects were arrested upon his release on Wednesday, and a third was arrested during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, when he returned to the scene.
Leads from the first hearings and the use of telephones helped put investigators on the trail of Étampes (Essonne), where the partner was found “tied up in the trunk of a vehicle”, explained the prosecutor.
Six people were arrested in this town in Essonne, in the Paris suburbs.
