Adapted by:
Javier Pastor
Senior WriterComputer scientist turned tech journalist. I've written about almost everything related to technology, but I specialize in hardware, operating systems and cryptocurrencies. I like writing about tech so much that I do it both for Xataka and Incognitosis, my personal blog.
Alba Mora
WriterAn established tech journalist, I entered the world of consumer tech by chance in 2018. In my writing and translating career, I've also covered a diverse range of topics, including entertainment, travel, science, and the economy.
David Balland is the co-founder of Ledger, the company behind a popular crypto wallet. He’s no longer active in the company and has retired with his partner to a town in France. In January, they were both kidnapped at gunpoint. Shortly after, kidnappers released a ransom video that showed Balland’s finger being cut off.
This violent event is part of a troubling trend that has emerged in recent months.
Kidnappings and attacks. The Wall Street Journal reports that in recent months, several incidents of kidnapping attempts and violent attacks have occurred targeting individuals believed to hold significant cryptocurrency assets.
Paymium is a cryptocurrency trading marketplace in France. The daughter of CEO Pierre Noizat recently experienced a kidnapping attempt. She was with her husband and son when armed men tried to force her into a white van. The woman called for help, and her husband fought off the attackers. A neighbor quickly grabbed the child to carry him away. When other neighbors approached, attackers jumped into the van and fled the scene.
A global trend. In September, a man was sentenced to 47 years in prison for leading a gang that carried out multiple home invasions. They targeted individuals with substantial holdings of cryptocurrencies. During one of these attacks, a 76-year-old man in Durham, North Carolina, was assaulted and threatened with mutilation.
In Spain, a woman reported her son’s kidnapping on February 1. The victim was a British cryptocurrency trader who cleverly used a ruse to alert a friend in London and managed to escape from his captors. In a separate incident, tech entrepreneur Zaryn Dentzel was kidnapped in 2021 for a ransom of $28 million in bitcoins. His captors were eventually arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison.
It’s better not to brag. Killian Desnos is a French influencer living in Malta who has often boasted about his wealth from cryptocurrencies. In August 2023, a person disguised as an Amazon courier kidnapped his dad. The kidnapper sent a video threatening his dad with a gun. Desnos ultimately paid the ransom, and his father was released the next day.
The police later found and arrested the two individuals responsible for the kidnapping. “Flexing on the internet was not a good idea, and I realize that,” Desnos shared in an X post following the incident, according to a Google translation.
Motive. Traditionally, criminals have attempted to steal cryptocurrencies through cyberattacks on trading markets. However, there has been a recent increase in direct attacks on individuals known to possess significant amounts of cryptocurrency.
James Loop, co-founder of bitcoin security company Casa, points out that a lot of people are reaching the security level of hiding money under the mattress. This is evidence that cryptocurrency holders are now facing risks of physical attacks.
Data theft exacerbates this issue. How do criminals identify their victims? One method involves obtaining data from breaches that some companies in the cryptocurrency sector have suffered. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently admitted that data from 1% of users on his platform (around 100,000 individuals) had been stolen. A similar incident occurred in 2020 when Ledger experienced a breach that exposed the data of 270,000 customers.
Identifying cryptomillionaires. Public registries of company owners make it easy to find the addresses of entrepreneurs. Taylor Monahan, a cybersecurity expert at MetaMask, explains that cybercriminals are able to cross-reference databases and even purchase information from data sources.
Doxing, where personal information is exposed, has become an increasingly common issue. It allows attackers to harass victims and, in some cases, issue threats of kidnapping or violence.
Image | Kanchanara
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