Six suspects, including a minor, are in custody after a 30-hour kidnapping ordeal that ended with the rescue of a French magistrate and her mother from a garage in southeastern France.
French authorities have arrested six individuals in connection with the violent abduction of a 35-year-old magistrate and her 67-year-old mother, an attack prosecutors say was driven by a demand for a cryptocurrency ransom.
The victims were found injured but alive on Friday morning in a garage in Bourg-lès-Valence (Drôme), approximately 100 kilometers from where they were taken. The swift resolution prevented the payment of any funds, though the kidnappers had reportedly threatened mutilation if their demands were not met.
The Target: A Crypto Executive’s Partner
The kidnapping, which began overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, appears to have been a targeted “wrench attack” aimed at the magistrate’s partner, a senior executive at a Lyon-based cryptocurrency startup. The executive was not home at the time of the abduction in Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux.
According to The Guardian, the executive received a message and a photo of the hostages shortly after their disappearance. The kidnappers demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency and threatened physical harm to the women if the transfer was not expedited.
The Rescue and Arrests
A massive manhunt involving 160 police officers was launched immediately. The breakthrough came not from digital forensics, but from a neighbor in Bourg-lès-Valence who heard the women banging on the garage door and intervened, allowing them to escape.
Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran confirmed that four men and one woman were detained shortly after the victims were found. Two of the suspects were apprehended on a bus attempting to flee to Spain. A sixth suspect, a minor, was arrested on Sunday afternoon.
Institutional Context: France’s ‘Wrench Attack’ Surge
This incident is the latest in a disturbing trend of physical violence targeting crypto holders in France. The relative anonymity of on-chain assets has made executives high-priority targets for organized crime rings seeking immediate, irreversible transfers.
The modi operandi mirrors the January 2025 kidnapping of a Ledger co-founder, who was held for ransom and mutilated before being released. French authorities have since charged 25 individuals in connection with a broader ring of crypto-related abductions, yet the high-reward nature of these crimes continues to attract violent actors.
