The founder of a French cryptocurrency company and his wife were released in France this week after being brutally kidnapped and held for ransom, authorities announced Thursday.
David Baltand, the founder of ledger, a company that sells virtual devices to store crypto assets, was kidnapped early Tuesday from his home in Vierzon, a city in Central France, according to the Paris prosecutor. The couple was taken away in a car, then separated and arrested at different locations, the prosecutor said.
The kidnapping started a wide-ranging investigation involving more than 230 officials who wanted to find the couple. In the end, they freed them without firing a shot, authorities said at a news conference in Paris on Thursday evening.
“This was a very complicated thing,” said the great Genaliswi, head of the Special Unit specializing in the rescue of the couple who freed the couple.
The prosecutor of Paris, Laure Beccua, said that the attackers contacted another founder of Ledger and demanded that a large ransom be paid using Cryptocurrency. He said the investigators were still trying to figure out how much to ask.
The company informs the Gendarmerie, the police in small towns and rural areas and in the French countryside. French news outlets that were holding back on the investigation refused to publish details to avoid the safety of the couple.
The gendarmes quickly found Mr Balland in Châteauroux, about 30 kilometers south-west of his home, and released him on Wednesday. He was admitted to the hospital because of “constipation” caused by the “victim” of the kidnappers in his hand, said Ms. Becuau.
An official with knowledge of the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, said the kidnappers sent a photo of Mr Balland’s Mutated fingerprint to pressure the company.
Part of the ransom was paid during negotiations with the kidnappers, Ms. Beccua said. “Almost all of that cryprocurrence was tracked, frozen and captured,” he said.
On Thursday, through the observation of other suspects, the analysis of phone records and the questioning of several people who were already in custody, the investigators found the wife of Mr. Balland in Étand in Veton.
Officers found him tied to the car but otherwise unharmed, said Ms. Beccua.
In total, nine men and one woman, aged 20 to 40, were arrested for questioning about the kidnapping, said Ms Beccuau. He did not identify themselves or provide details about their involvement, saying only that they were from different cities and had criminal records. They were not known to police as part of organized crime, he said.
Pascal Gauthier, the head of the ledger, wrote on social media on Thursday that he was “very relieved.”
“Our top priority has always been to allow law enforcement to do their jobs and protect the integrity of the investigation,” said Mr. Gautier. “We respected the requests of the law enforcement to protect the sensitive information of the ongoing investigation and informed the members of the machine who will do the same.”
LEDGER, a prominent start-up with over $1 billion, was founded in 2014 and has sold more than six million units since then, according to the company’s website. It has more than 700 employees in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the company said.
Veric Larchevque, another founder in the company and a well-known TV personality who appeared in a French prison equivalent to “Shark Tank,” expressed “great joy and great joy in the release of communications after the release of Mr. Balland and his wife.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into charges of kidnapping and holding an opponent as part of an organized group in order to receive something in exchange; Acts of torture; and armed robbery. Those crimes can carry life sentences, Ms. Beccuau said.
This case revealed the same thing that was reported by the French media this month where a man and his family were carried by a group that wanted to kill his son, a cryprocurrency Inffencer living in Dubai. They were released, but no arrests have been made in the case, according to news reports.
At this stage, the investigators have not removed the tires between the two cases, said Ms. Beccuau.
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