French Police Rescue Kidnapped Father of Crypto Entrepreneur

The police arrested four people “in or near the home where the victim was being held captive” during the operation on Saturday and a fifth person who was “driving one of the vehicles likely used by the perpetrators,” the prosecutor’s office said. Two more people were arrested on Sunday, the statement added.
In a social media post, Bruno Retailleau, the French interior minister, wrote, “A huge congratulations to the investigators who did an exceptional job freeing this man and arresting his captors.”
The case was the latest high-profile kidnapping in France connected to cryptocurrency.
In January, the police freed David Balland, a crypto entrepreneur, and his wife, who had been kidnapped and held for ransom for two days.
Mr. Balland is a founder of Ledger, which sells physical devices to store crypto assets. He was hospitalized because the kidnappers had mutilated his hand, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said at the time. His wife had been tied up in a car but was otherwise unhurt, Ms. Beccuau added.
A few weeks earlier, a man and his family had been held hostage in France by a group that wanted to blackmail his son, a crypto influencer living in Dubai, French news media reported.