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Retiree Mistaken for Cryptocurrency Millionaire’s Father Nearly Subjected to Severe Mistreatment, 2026/02/03 14:36:49
In the French city of Lyon, a court has placed three suspects in custody for the abduction of a pensioner, whom the assailants mistakenly identified as the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire. A ransom in cryptocurrency was demanded from the son of the 74-year-old Frenchman.
According to the case materials, on January 25, the criminals broke into the elderly man’s home. At the time, three 17-year-old teenagers were also present, renting an annex. The three tenants were tied up, their phones confiscated, and the elderly man was taken away in a vehicle. He was held for approximately 16 hours in a storage room of a bar in Valencia, where he was subjected to torture: his face was cut, and a finger was severed.
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The suspects demanded a ransom of 3 million euros in cryptocurrency, believing that the man’s son was a millionaire. To secure the ransom, they recorded violent scenes and sent them via encrypted messages to the victim’s son. When the perpetrators realized that the individual they were extorting was merely a web developer and not a significant crypto investor, they drove the elderly Frenchman to a highway and released him.
The suspects were apprehended on the same highway. Law enforcement officials charged them with kidnapping and hostage-taking as part of an organized group, torture, organized robbery, and other offenses.
This incident is not the first case of violent attacks on cryptocurrency investors in France. Following several instances of abductions and thefts of crypto wallets, police arrested a tax service employee. The woman is suspected of having provided information about major cryptocurrency holders to criminal organizations. A few weeks later, hackers breached the French tax platform Waltio, where investors report their cryptocurrency transactions. French authorities have expressed concern that the stolen data from Waltio could trigger a new wave of attacks on affluent individuals.
