The Paris Criminal Court has just sentenced three men for trying, on January 19, 2026, to kidnap a couple of entrepreneurs active in the crypto world, in the 16th arrondissement. Sentences ranging from 10 months to 2 years in prison were handed down, despite the kidnapping attempt not being successful.
A kidnapping attempt targeting cryptocurrencies
At 5 a.m. on January 19, 2026, four men from Garges-lès-Gonesse (Val-d’Oise) parked on Boulevard Flandrin, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, in a vehicle stolen a few days earlier. They have with them hoods, gloves, knives, serflex and tape: “The perfect paraphernalia for kidnapping and extortion”will summarize the civil party at the hearing. Their target: a couple of entrepreneurs well identified in the world of cryptos.
But the plan quickly collapsed: the caretaker of the building, already suspicious because she had noticed strangers examining the list of residents a few weeks earlier and found a knife in a flowerpot in the courtyard, immediately alerted the police. The police arrived in less than ten minutes. Two suspects are caught in the car, the other two in the courtyard.
🪙 To find out more: List of kidnappings and attacks linked to cryptocurrencies in France
The trial was held on April 1. The criminals were obviously unaware of the importance and scale of the alleged acts. The three defendants (the fourth, a minor, being tried separately) denied the facts, laughed when reading their exchanges Snapchat in which they organized the operation by mentioning “attached, crypto, all that all that”. They struggled to express themselves audibly, forcing the president to intervene on several occasions. One of them finally said that he had forced the door to « récupérer un truc illégal »…without specifying which one.
The court did not accept the qualifications of sequestration or kidnapping, because the material had remained in the vehicle and the victims were never physically harmed. But the three men were indeed condemned, for “criminal association” et « tentative vol aggravé » : respectively 2 years, 18 months and 10 months in prison.
The couple who were targeted by the operation have since left France to settle in the United States.
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France, the country most targeted by crypto extortion
This verdict should reassure the French crypto sector, which finds itself targeted by more and more attempts to extort cryptocurrencies. There has been at least one case every five days since January 2026. France now accounts for 72% of kidnappings and extortion attempts linked to cryptos in the world.
This is not the only verdict rendered in recent weeks on similar cases. On February 23, the Amiens criminal court sentenced two men, aged 19 and 24, to 9 and 5 years in prison respectively for having kidnapped an entire family on October 31, 2025 – before being put on the run by the father.
ðŸ—žï¸ Crypto kidnapping: 6 men arrested in the Paris region for a case at the beginning of January
The co-founder of Ledger, Éric Larchevêque, spoke last February on LCIsummarizing the feeling of ambient threat: “We wonder who’s going to be next. HAS”
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After training in journalism, I worked for a few years in the general press before discovering the world of personal finance and the stock market. Having fallen into cryptos since 2020, I am particularly interested in deciphering the news that influences the crypto markets. My goal? Always teach my readers more by providing the most precise and accurate information possible.
Justine Ferrari
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