French authorities have arrested three men accused of kidnapping and torturing a 74-year-old man for nearly 16 hours in a failed attempt to extort cryptocurrency from his son.
Police said the suspects abducted the victim from his home in Voiron, in southeastern France, after wrongly believing his son was a wealthy crypto trader holding millions in digital assets.
“These are extremely violent acts that demonstrate a rather blatant level of amateurism on the part of the perpetrators,”
Said a lawyer for the victim’s family.
Investigators said the attackers severed one of the man’s fingers, cut his face and filmed the abuse in a back room of a bar, sending the footage to the victim’s son while demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency.
The gang abandoned the extortion attempt after discovering the son was a web developer with no significant crypto holdings and released the victim later the same day.
Authorities said the case highlights a rise in so-called “wrench attacks” linked to crypto, with at least 19 such incidents reported in France, according to data cited by security researchers.