‘Jackpot!’ How French police freed a cryptocurrency hostage whose finger was severed for ransom

FILE - An employee watches an electronic signboard displaying the prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies at the lounge of Bithumb cryptocurrency exchange in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 21, 2024. Photo by Ahn Young-joon /AP

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PARIS (AP) — Fearful that the kidnappers might sever another finger from their hostage or worse, the French police commander ordered his officers — with a radioed “Go” command — to raid the house where he suspected that the father of a wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur was being held.

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Fabrice Gardon, director of Paris’ judicial police, then waited anxiously in his unit’s headquarters in the north of the French capital for the code word they use to signal that a hostage has been freed.

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Finally, it came: “Jackpot!”

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With seven suspects in custody, the police commander detailed in radio interviews Monday 58 hours of drama, mutilation and finally relief that marked the latest kidnapping in France of people working in the cryptocurrency business.

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The victim was the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, the prosecutor’s office said.

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Attackers wearing balaclavas bundled him into a van as he was coming out of his Paris house to walk his dog last Thursday morning, Gardon said. He said bystanders alerted police.

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Speaking to RTL radio, he confirmed French media reports that the kidnappers severed one of the hostage’s fingers. He said they sent a video to his son of the mutilation and other video of his father tied up, and demanded millions of euros (dollars) in ransom.

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On Saturday night, police tracked the gang to a house in the Essonne region south of Paris, where investigators believed the man was being held.

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“We got there a few minutes before a new ultimatum where the victim might again have suffered another mutilation,” Gardon said.

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He gave the go-ahead for an assault by a police Search and Intervention Brigade, known by its French initials, BRI. He then followed its progress over the radio from the judicial police headquarters.

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“After a few moments, the head of the BRI said over the radio — using what’s our code — ‘Jackpot!” In our jargon that means, ‘All good. We have freed the hostage,”‘ he said on France Info radio.

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“Obviously, it was a big relief,” he said.

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The prosecutor’s office said police detained four people in or close to the house where the man was held captive, and a fifth person at the wheel of a vehicle thought to have been used for the alleged abduction.

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Another two suspects were detained Sunday, it said.

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It said the police investigation is looking at an array of possible criminal charges, including kidnapping “with torture or a barbaric act.”

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In January, police said a co-founder of French crypto-wallet firm Ledger, David Balland, was also kidnapped with his wife from their home in the Cher region of central France.

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Police said they made 10 arrests and that the alleged kidnappers demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency from another of Ledger’s co-founders.

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A raid by France’s elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit that specializes in hostage situations freed Balland the next day, followed the day after that by the liberation, again by the GIGN, of his wife, found tied up in a vehicle, police said.

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