By Elizabeth Howcroft
PARIS (Reuters) -A co-founder of French crypto company Ledger and his partner have been freed after being kidnapped and held to ransom, the Paris prosecutors’ office said on Thursday.
David Balland was kidnapped early Tuesday morning at his home in central France and taken by car to another address where he was held captive, prosecutors said in an initial statement.
The kidnappers demanded a “large ransom in cryptocurrency”, they said, without giving the amount or saying whether it had been paid.
Balland was freed on Wednesday and received medical treatment from the emergency services, the statement said.
It did not give details of the release, but said it was the result of extensive police work, including by GIGN, one of France’s elite tactical police units.
In a later statement on Thursday, the prosecutors said Balland’s partner had been freed by GIGN.
They did not say if any of the kidnappers had been arrested.
Ledger is one of France’s top crypto companies. Founded in 2014, it sells “hardware wallets” – physical devices for storing crypto assets. Balland is one of eight co-founders, the company’s website says.
In 2021, Ledger raised $380 million in a funding round which valued it at $1.5 billion.
The kidnapping comes as France struggles to control a rise in organised crime. In May last year, gunmen wearing balaclavas freed a jailed drug boss, ambushing his prison van and killing two prison guards in the process. Known as “The Fly,” the prisoner, Mohamed Amra, has not been found and no arrests have been made.
Regulators and law enforcement have long warned about crypto’s role in crime. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global body responsible for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing, has warned that crypto assets “risk becoming a safe haven for the financial transactions of criminals and terrorists”.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris. Editing by Gareth Jones)
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