Paris
—
It was a photo of a loved one that no one wanted to receive.
The partner of a 35-year-old French magistrate checked his phone last week and found a photo of his partner alongside a stern warning: “Pay the ransom in cryptocurrency or we will cut her off.”
Local authorities said the man, an employee of a cryptocurrency startup, reported the request to French police on Thursday morning, sparking a multi-agency investigation involving up to 160 police officers.
The magistrate and his elderly mother were held in a garage in the Drôme region of southern France for 30 hours before they escaped, CNN affiliate BFMTV reported.
The case puts renewed focus on the recent rise in cryptocurrency-related kidnappings in France and elsewhere, often involving high-profile individuals or their associates. A search continues in the United States for Nancy Guthrie, 84, the mother of Today host Savannah Guthrie, who disappeared. CNN reports that a purported ransom note demands millions of bitcoins for her return.
In France, a mother-daughter duo managed to escape from a garage in the city of Bourg-les-Valences with the help of neighbors and without a ransom being paid, Lyon prosecutor Thierry Derain said at a press conference on Friday.
“They were able to take advantage of the prisoners’ absence to free themselves and ask for help, especially by banging on the garage door,” Dolan said. “A neighbor heard the noise and intervened. He was able to open the door and allow the two victims to escape.”
The anonymous man who found the two women told local media they were grateful for his intervention.
“I was coming to get my car when I heard women hitting and screaming. I opened the door and two women came out. They were a little dirty. I was happy. They said thank you,” he told BFMTV.
The women were immediately taken to the hospital, Dolan said.
According to BFMTV, six people, including a minor, were arrested in connection with the kidnapping on Sunday. According to the paper, the main suspect, who is in his 20s, was arrested in Lyon and Chambéry.
The latest kidnapping follows a similar incident in France related to the world of cryptocurrencies due to the individuals involved and the currency of the ransom.
Some believe that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are untraceable and therefore useful for ransom demands, but experts say this is a misconception. “Cryptocurrency runs on a blockchain, and a blockchain is a public registry where everything is visible, everything is traceable, and everything is auditable,” French IT senior security consultant Renaud Lifshitz told CNN last year.
Last week, SentinelOne’s vice president of intelligence and security research, Juan Andres Guerrero Saad, told CNN that Bitcoin is one of the “most traceable currencies of all time.”
In December 2024, the wife of cryptocurrency investor and influencer Stephan Winkel was kidnapped from the couple’s home in Belgium. She was rescued after her kidnapper crashed her car in a dramatic police pursuit.
The following month, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet company Ledger, was kidnapped along with his wife from their home in central France. Before the couple was released, the attackers sent a video of Balland’s severed finger to his business partner Eric Larsweg and demanded a ransom.
In late 2025, the daughter of the CEO of French cryptocurrency platform Paymium was rescued by a passerby from a daytime kidnapping attempt in Paris.
