Three Men in France Suspected of Tying Up 74-Year-Old to Extort His Son's Crypto Assets, Torture for Nearly 16 Hours before Releasing Hostage upon Realizing 'Wrong Person'

BlockBeats News, February 3rd, according to DLNews, French police arrested three men in their twenties who are accused of kidnapping and torturing a 74-year-old man in an attempt to extort $3.5 million worth of cryptocurrency from his son. Officials told reporters that the 74-year-old man endured nearly 16 hours of torture by the group.

According to the French media Actu 17, police said the three men kidnapped the unnamed elderly man from his home in the early hours of January 25th in the town of Valence in the Isère department in southeastern France. The victim was forcibly placed in a car and taken to a back room of a bar in Valence. It is alleged that the attackers filmed themselves torturing the elderly man there. Subsequently, the group sent the torture video to the man's son via encrypted messages, demanding an unspecified amount of cryptocurrency as ransom. When they eventually realized that the man's son was not the "cryptocurrency millionaire" they mistakenly assumed, but just a web developer with not much cryptocurrency, they decided to release the victim at 11 p.m. on the same day, pushing him out of the car by the roadside.

Kidnappings and other violent attacks related to cryptocurrency are on the rise globally. The situation in France is particularly prominent, with the country reporting 19 cases of so-called "wrench attacks" (i.e., obtaining cryptocurrency through violent threats), according to Certik data. Last year, French authorities successfully rescued cryptocurrency hardware company Ledger's co-founder David Balland and his wife, who were kidnapped by criminals attempting to extort ransom.