Crypto Kidnappings in France Out of Control!

[pushups44]

There have been several high-profile kidnappings of crypto executives or their relatives in France, showing there is now a pattern of organized criminals targeting those thought to possess cryptocurrencies. While other countries have had similar incidents, for now France appears to have taken the lead in some of the boldest attacks. Recently, two relatives (a mother and child) of a crypto exchange CEO endured a bold kidnapping attempt in broad daylight in Paris.

So what can France and other countries do to stem the tide of such attacks? If this is not brought under control, this potentially may drive away everyday people who will have to fear a kidnapping attempt if they hold Bitcoin. These attacks should thus be understood as terrorism being committed against bitcoiners and their families.

Source: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250514-france-summons-cryptocurrency-businesses-after-kidnappings

[Hatchy]

If criminals were scared of the laws they would have abstained from their evil deeds. No matter what punishment the authorities place on ground for such acts, I don't think it would stop someone who already has purely evil intentions. The rate of kidnapping crypto holder is now getting out of hand. It's no longer a new thing and everyweek we get news about such.

 This then push the motion, are crypto holders still not aware of what is going on? Or they just don't care and since they have the money to pay off these guys they choose to pay deaf ears. As a crypto holder, your privacy should be taken seriously. If these kidnapping is not taken seriously by the government, it might later on result to something much worse like killing. I hope the government works fast on something to help stop and it's also on the hands of the holders to remain quit of their holdings.

[Odusko]

There is already a discussion thread on the kidnapping of a france CEO daughter and the son, I think it was an unsuccessful kidnapping attempt that left the victims injured and now receiving treatment in an hospital, security crisis is at high rate and we need to be more careful, most targeted lately are not only high profile individuals, but even aged people too are getting kidnapped for ransom.

[CryptSafe]

_act_  has been updating this platform with information as it relates to activities in crypto safety when it comes to security and happenings to crypto enthusiasts all around the world, but of late, France has been in the headlines for their crime scheme on crypto enthusiasts and it is quite worrisome that the attacks keep increasing daily without a proper solution to this menace in France. This is now an eye-opener of what is to come if the crypto community does not take their safety seriously.

So far, the reports have been on attacks as it relates to influencers, CEOs of exchange, etc, which shows that the act is coordinated and preplanned and they are in the know of their whereabouts to easily attack them and steal from them so the question everybody would ask is that who is leaking their information to all these criminals to launch an attack on them.

On the other hand, I am curious to ask this to the general house, do you think it is safe to use the local exchange where you are well known in that locality? because I feel this is another threat on its own.

[Ucy]

If you want to be fairly secure as a bitcoiners you'll have to operate within the boundaries of Bitcoin principles:
* Don't let the public or people you don't trust (trustless) know you own bitcoins unless you are sure of your security.
* Better to hold and use Bitcoin anonymously as the Bitcoin ledger is transparent, or people can easily view how much is in your Bitcoin address and your address activities. If the addresses are not linked to owners true identities, it will be hard to know who they belong to and the owners wont be victims of Bitcoin thieves.
* One more important thing,  if you have lots of bitcoins, try to split them into multiple parts or send them to multiple addresses so that if you are unfortunate with Bitcoin thieves you could only give them a secret keys to one address and other bitcoins will be spared. .

[Lida93]

If criminals were scared of the laws they would have abstained from their evil deeds. No matter what punishment the authorities place on ground for such acts, I don't think it would stop someone who already has purely evil intentions. The rate of kidnapping crypto holder is now getting out of hand. It's no longer a new thing and everyweek we get news about such.

If it's about being scared of the law they are scared and that's why they nocturnally carry out these criminal acts making sure the authorities don't caught up with them in the very act. I don't know if I should say it's a common occurrence in every society today where the less privileged targets the highly privileged as a means to use to climb to the echelon. It just can entirely be ended but the authority can only try to limit it prevalence.

[Ojima-ojo]

_act_  has been updating this platform with information as it relates to activities in crypto safety when it comes to security and happenings to crypto enthusiasts all around the world,

Here is the link to the thread and it's on beginners and help section of the Forum:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5543371.0


Most times when such incidents happens, we tend to get carried away into believing that such incidents occurred because of they individual societal class and level, forgetting that there have been an increasingly high crime rate around the world lately, and kidnapping is one the most popular crime that both high profile and low profile re most targeted.

[coolcoinz]

Let me guess. The kidnappers are gangs from Africa.

France is one of the countries in the EU that took the most migrants back when the left thought it was a good idea. So ethical, so full of sympathy towards the people who leave their countries to seek welfare checks in the North. Now France is suffering from homelessness and high crime rates and doesn't know what to do with all those people from Senegal Cameroon and so on that fill up their prisons.

[Alphakilo]

This thread should be locked as it is a duplicate of the other one made by another user.
My comments on this too everyone should stay anonymous as long as you can. This goes as far as being as discreet as possible online and offline.
Countries also need to strengthen their security so that these type.of attacks can be crushed before it is even carried out.
There's a whole website decided to keeping records of these attacks. When you go through it , the people responsible for this are not immigrants but also locals. Bad people will always be bad people.

[Ojima-ojo]

This thread should be locked as it is a duplicate of the other one made by another user.

Sometimes, users that create this kind of thread are carried away with the Chuck of the incident, and once they create such thread they go offline for so long not responding, I guess a few of us have reported the thread, but moderators haven't visited yet to lock the thread and the ops have not been active on this thread either.

[pushups44]

This thread should be locked as it is a duplicate of the other one made by another user.

Sometimes, users that create this kind of thread are carried away with the Chuck of the incident, and once they create such thread they go offline for so long not responding, I guess a few of us have reported the thread, but moderators haven't visited yet to lock the thread and the ops have not been active on this thread either.

I'm here. My angle here is more about the policy that can be implemented to reduce such attacks. Given the prevalence of such attacks all of a sudden, some attention is needed. I don't see why there should only be one thread on such an important topic, but if the mods feel it should be so, I am OK with it. Also, I believe that if a person is against a particular thread being made, the best response is no response, similar to dealing with trolls. Lately I have noticed complaints about threads that, again, are simply kicked up due to the complaints. I find this weird because even complaining about something is time-consuming, when the nature of time itself is finite.*

Anyway, I hope French authorities will take such incidents more seriously, because this may have the effect of scaring away crypto businesses from the country.



*To elaborate a bit on the concept: complaining about a supposedly trifling matter simply creates more trifling matter, potentially exponentially. Thus, in most cases, the expression of disagreement with the creation of a thread is redundant and an infraction similar to what one is supposedly complaining about. However, if this were maliciously done by a spammer, it would be an entirely different matter.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Let me guess. The kidnappers are gangs from Africa.

France is one of the countries in the EU that took the most migrants back when the left thought it was a good idea. So ethical, so full of sympathy towards the people who leave their countries to seek welfare checks in the North. Now France is suffering from homelessness and high crime rates and doesn't know what to do with all those people from Senegal Cameroon and so on that fill up their prisons.

I would not name a specific country, but I am also sure that all the crimes are committed by migrants whose lives did not turn out to be as fabulous as they hoped for when they moved to Europe. And yes, their level of knowledge, as well as laziness (since they wanted to receive benefits all their lives without working), does not tell them anything about morality and rules of conduct in a foreign country; moreover, their demands sometimes cross all boundaries of impudence. France should do with migrants like Trump: send them all to their historical homeland.

[CryptSafe]

_act_  has been updating this platform with information as it relates to activities in crypto safety when it comes to security and happenings to crypto enthusiasts all around the world,

Here is the link to the thread and it's on beginners and help section of the Forum:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5543371.0


Most times when such incidents happens, we tend to get carried away into believing that such incidents occurred because of they individual societal class and level, forgetting that there have been an increasingly high crime rate around the world lately, and kidnapping is one the most popular crime that both high profile and low profile re most targeted.

That's the link to the thread you have provided, and I also made a comment there. You did well by attaching it here for members to see and also read it.

Security is a personal matter, and as such, one should take one's safety very seriously and make it paramount in times as these. It is true that both the rich and poor are victims of kidnaping and it is very difficult to tell when such incident would occur. It is better to keep a low profile if one can and not disclose your crypto holdings or act like you do not do crypto for your safety and if you live around the environment where these crimes frequently happens, if you can relocate from there better but if you can't, stay away from too much sensitive gatherings as it relates to crypto and others to avoid being a target by kidnappers.

[ethex]

This thread should be locked as it is a duplicate of the other one made by another user.

Sometimes, users that create this kind of thread are carried away with the Chuck of the incident, and once they create such thread they go offline for so long not responding, I guess a few of us have reported the thread, but moderators haven't visited yet to lock the thread and the ops have not been active on this thread either.

I'm here. My angle here is more about the policy that can be implemented to reduce such attacks. Given the prevalence of such attacks all of a sudden, some attention is needed. I don't see why there should only be one thread on such an important topic, but if the mods feel it should be so, I am OK with it. Also, I believe that if a person is against a particular thread being made, the best response is no response, similar to dealing with trolls. Lately I have noticed complaints about threads that, again, are simply kicked up due to the complaints. I find this weird because even complaining about something is time-consuming, when the nature of time itself is finite.*

Anyway, I hope French authorities will take such incidents more seriously, because this may have the effect of scaring away crypto businesses from the country.



*To elaborate a bit on the concept: complaining about a supposedly trifling matter simply creates more trifling matter, potentially exponentially. Thus, in most cases, the expression of disagreement with the creation of a thread is redundant and an infraction of what one is supposedly complaining about. However, if this were maliciously done by a spammer, it would be an entirely different matter.

how could they take a more seruously it should be many happening but we are not aware of it man

[pushups44]

Does anyone have thoughts about what France and other countries can do at a policy-level to reduce such attacks? Obviously, people should be more private with regard to their finances and hobbies. But what can governments do?  

I think the mods have let this thread continue because this topic is important. So to the small number of "thread-complainers": ignore this thread or contribute meaningfully by adding what, if anything, you think governments can do.

Again, what can governments do? This is not merely an issue for individuals to consider. It's a society-wide problem, too.

[BenCodie]

One of the biggest problems with the adoption of Bitcoin and crypto has got to be the lag in regulation, law and enforcement right now. Scams are everywhere, situations like this are only becoming more and more rampant, while governments and LE are lagging on investigations to track criminals down. On the other side, people are being completely oblivious to the dangers of flaunting their wealth, status and positions, leading to situations like this. While this is an extreme case, a generally good standard of privacy by the family might have prevented something like this.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

If criminals were scared of the laws they would have abstained from their evil deeds. No matter what punishment the authorities place on ground for such acts, I don't think it would stop someone who already has purely evil intentions. The rate of kidnapping crypto holder is now getting out of hand. It's no longer a new thing and everyweek we get news about such.

There's this impression that the government can always control which ever situation they want to control unless they don't just pay close interest to it. This kidnapping cases getting out hand but if the government really takes it so serious, they can handled and cause the incident to reduce.

On the other hand, I am curious to ask this to the general house, do you think it is safe to use the local exchange where you are well known in that locality? because I feel this is another threat on its own.

If the exchange is reputable, I mean they have a very high trust worthy profile, then it's not a bad idea for me to use it, unless they have had a case of hacks or leaked information before, that's only when I would avoid the exchange, because after they ask for KYC and carelessly allow users informations to be exposed, that means they could put users at risk because their information can get into the hands of those thieves. Another thing, cryptography users should be extremely careful in the exchange they perform KYC or better still avoid exchange that request for KYC.

[milewilda]

There have been several high-profile kidnappings of crypto executives or their relatives in France, showing there is now a pattern of organized criminals targeting those thought to possess cryptocurrencies. While other countries have had similar incidents, for now France appears to have taken the lead in some of the boldest attacks. Recently, two relatives (a mother and child) of a crypto exchange CEO endured a bold kidnapping attempt in broad daylight in Paris.

So what can France and other countries do to stem the tide of such attacks? If this is not brought under control, this potentially may drive away everyday people who will have to fear a kidnapping attempt if they hold Bitcoin. These attacks should thus be understood as terrorism being committed against bitcoiners and their families.

Source: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250514-france-summons-cryptocurrency-businesses-after-kidnappings

One of the cons of having that decentralized and anonymity transactions on what Bitcoin do have, then it will be that totally eradicating the possibilities for them to get traced and thats why whenever these criminals do have the chance on knowing on whose been that dealing up with crypto then they would be that having that target. The bad thing on here is that even into those small-time holders will be that getting included as a target even if they arent that holding up that much. This is why on personal approach on things then its always been that recommended that you should be that making yourself that low-key when it comes into your crypto holdings. For those who do own big exchangers or any companies that involves crypto, then as a father/husband/family man, then you do know on what you should gonna do on which trying out to secure your family as much as you could even if it means on hiring up securities or bodyguards. We dont know ointo those people who are around on which they are just that observing and watching your move. For those who are just that ordinary people then it will be just that recommended that you shouldnt be that too flexing with your current holdings because you dont know on whose watching you. Its better to be safe than sorry or simply dont wait that there's something that do happen into your loved one sor even into yourself.

[348Judah]

By now, we all should know that privacy is necessary and we should not expose all we do to other people that they begin to know our worth and the capacity in our portfolio, once they have done it to someone and see how profitable it is to kidnap and earn huge sum of money for doing less, they will continue and begin to hunt after other crypto users, but when we keep to our privacy, most of these bad actors will not know or have an idea of what we do or if we have bitcoin or not, lets not be the one to open up our vulnerability to the public before attacking us.

[headingnorth]

It seems these crypto kidnappings are all happening in France from some reason.
I don't hear about them anywhere else, at least not yet.