The general public especially knows one of his three partners: Eric Larchevêque. This bearded and smiling entrepreneur co-founded the company Ledger, specializing in the security of cryptoassets. He is one of the faces of the M6 show Who wants to be my partner? On Wednesday, the rumor of his kidnapping spread on social networks. But it was one of his relatives, David Balland, who had been missing since Monday morning.
The man, the Paris prosecutor tells us, had been kidnapped while he was at his home in Cher. He was found on Wednesday evening during an ultra-sensitive operation in which members of the GIGN participated.
A ransom demand
After being alerted, the Bourges public prosecutor's office opened an investigation for “kidnapping and sequestration by a gang organized to obtain the execution of a condition”. A crime punishable by life imprisonment. The members of the commando demanded, in exchange for the release of this successful entrepreneur, the payment of a ransom in cryptocurrency.
To find them, a large gendarmerie system was set up around Vierzon. A helicopter flew over the area while the military deployed near Méreau, a small village in which David Balland resides according to Republican Berry. Operations are still underway this Thursday afternoon in this village of 2,600 inhabitants, indicates AFP.
Suspects in custody
The police intervened on Wednesday in Vierzon, and to enter a home. Is this where David Balland was? “The victim had been taken by her captors in a car and driven to another address, where she was sequestered,” the Paris prosecutor's office simply indicates in its press release, specifying that the man was “taken into care by emergency services” and must “be the subject of care”.
-Given the sensitivity of the case, the Paris prosecutor's office's anti-organized crime division has taken control of the ongoing investigation in order to “identify and arrest all the perpetrators of this crime.” According to The Parisianseveral suspects were arrested and taken into custody by investigators from the Bourges research section. Information that the prosecution has not yet confirmed to us.
Cryptocurrency specialist
On LinkedIn, David Ballan indicates that he went to high school in Brive-la-Gaillarde and then studied at Supinfo, a computer science school located in Tours. He created several companies including Chronocoin, an online platform allowing its users to buy bitcoins with their credit card and have them delivered to a hardware wallet. He then co-founded, in 2014, Ledger, one of the French unicorns, that is to say a startup valued at more than a billion dollars.
Our file on cryptocurrency
Cases of this type have increased recently in France. Earlier this month, a 56-year-old man was kidnapped in Ain and found tied up in the trunk of a car near Le Mans. There too, a ransom demand was sent to his son, a cryptocurrency influencer based in Dubai, who regularly posts videos about his winnings.
