A couple living near Montpellier has been the target of two separate crypto-related home invasion attempts within six months, according to regional newspaper Ouest-France, as French authorities record a steep rise in kidnappings and abduction attempts tied to cryptocurrency holdings.
The most recent incident took place at around 5am on Tuesday, 29 September, in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, on the outskirts of Montpellier. Three men climbed over the property's fence but fled after a perimeter alarm sounded. Gendarmes intercepted the trio shortly afterward in a stolen car. The suspects, aged 19, 30 and 38, were arrested; two of them were already known to justice, Ouest-France reported. The investigation has been assigned to the brigade de recherches de Castelnau-le-Lez. No other outlet had confirmed the details of this incident at the time of writing.
The same couple had previously been targeted on 11 April 2026, when a man disguised as a delivery driver and armed with a handgun entered their home, grouped the parents and their two children in a single room, and demanded access to a cryptocurrency wallet. According to Midi Libre, the attacker was allegedly guided by phone by an accomplice throughout the intrusion. The father tackled the assailant during the confrontation, and a gunshot was fired in the struggle without injuring anyone. A 25-year-old suspect was arrested three days later, on 14 April, in Marseille by gendarmes of the section de recherches de Montpellier. He was placed in pretrial detention, according to Cointelegraph.
Marseille features twice in the case: the first suspect was arrested there, and the vehicle used by the trio in the September incident had also been stolen in the city. Investigators have not established any official link between the two attacks against the couple.
A rising national trend
The case fits a broader pattern documented by France's national anti-organised-crime prosecutor's office, PNACO, which has recorded 135 kidnapping or abduction cases linked to cryptocurrencies since 2023, according to figures reported by Europe 1. The tally rose from 18 cases in 2024 to 67 in 2025, with a further 47 cases opened in the first four months of 2026 alone, as of the end of April.
Investigators trace part of the exposure to a 2020 data breach at hardware wallet maker Ledger, which leaked personal details of customers and has since been linked to a string of physical attacks against crypto holders in France. The sums involved are not always large: in one case in Taverny, a family was sequestered over cryptocurrency holdings worth just 100 euros. Overall, France now records roughly one crypto-related kidnapping or attempted kidnapping every two to three days.
