In the early morning of January 19, we are still celebrating Senegal’s victory in the African Cup of Nations in football. It is also the day chosen for Mr. So. to go, with three people M. Sa., M. Y., and a fourth minor accomplice, to the 16th arrondissement of Paris. In a plush Haussmann building, at the same address as a consulate, resides a couple of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs. Mr. So. and Sa. open the door of the building with one shoulder, without weapons and barely hooded. Alerted by the building’s caretaker, the police interrupted them before they could go any further. On board the vehicle, where the two other accomplices were hidden, investigators found balaclavas, gloves, tape and two knives.
After a referral during a first hearing, the case arrived for immediate appearance on Wednesday at the Paris court. Three defendants, long-time friends, are in the box, the fourth, a minor, is tried separately. Everyone denies having known anything about what he was doing there. However, numerous indications suggest that they intended to commit a homejacking or a kidnapping for a ransom in crypto. The court did not hesitate for long: Twenty-four months of detention for Mr. So., eighteen months for Mr. Sa., ten months for MY
The defendants deny having planned extortion
The defense lawyers, however, tried to play on doubt. “When we have a 22-year-old boy, on a match night, to whom we say ‘come, let’s take a ride’, yes, he gets in the car”, defends MY’s advice. He asks for his release. For Mr. Sa., his lawyer questions: “Until the last minute, there is a form of reluctance.” He pleads for alternatives to incarceration for a young person “who has not yet even entered working life, who works with his family”.
Me Florian Goddest Le Gall is trying to clear the air: no victim address in the messages, no documented prior surveillance, two men who enter the courtyard without a weapon, with no means of immobilizing anyone. “Two clampins arrive: what do they do, do they knock on the door? It’s an eccentric way of operating.” The lawyer nevertheless recognizes an “imperfect and difficult” defense in this case which he says he only had “a few minutes” to examine. He was appointed just before the hearing, in a context where the bar is observing a zealous strike against a bill on criminal justice.
Mr. So., for his part, grumbles, almost sheepish, and struggles to justify himself. He admits to having forced the door to recover “an illegal object” that he had been asked to collect, in exchange for 200 euros. Who gave him this order? Impossible for him to say. What object? He doesn’t specify. Why go there at five in the morning, with three accomplices including a minor, in a stolen car? “The three people with me had nothing to do, I asked them to come with me.”
A rise in crypto extortion attempts
The lawyer for the civil party, Me Charles Merveilleux du Vignaux, does not mince his words. For him, there is no possible doubt, the equipment found in the car constitutes “the perfect paraphernalia for kidnapping and extortion.” He emphasizes “great amateurism”, but believes that this makes them “even more dangerous”.
The alleged targets have since left France and moved forward with their plans to settle in the United States. Their council had summarized the issue as follows: “An attempted kidnapping and extortion, through him, it is the security of France as a place of reception for this type of activity which is at stake.” Around forty cases of kidnappings organized between July 2023 and the end of 2025 are to be linked to cryptocurrency, according to a confidential police note shared by Radio France.
