France is facing a wave of underline violence against owners of encrypted assets. According to the French Minister of the Interior, Laurent Núñez, since this year the authorities have documented 77 cases of kidnapping, abduction, extortion or attempted kidnapping directly related to digital assets, which the Government has identified as a serious security issue.
About 200 persons captured
According to Núñez, France is moving forward with a more vigorous campaign aimed at dismantling the criminal gangs behind it. According to official accounts, some 200 arrests have been facilitated by existing emergency disposal mechanisms.
At the same time, the French Government has adapted its security system, focusing on intelligence-sharing, networks of professional collaboration and international coordination to track the organized criminal chain that operates across regions.
It's done in a way that points to remote manipulation.
According to the Central Office for Combating Organized Crime of France, OOCLCO, such cases tend to exhibit a more regular pattern of modus operandi. The head of the agency, Tibo Fontaine, stated that the groups in question reflected new changes in organized crime and that the behind-the-scenes commanders might not be present, but would operate remotely through mobile phones.
Such cases are commonly referred to in the encryption industry as “wrestling attacks”, in which criminals do not rely on chain-based technical means but directly threaten, kidnap or extort violence from currency holders themselves to force them to hand over control of their assets.
Attention to regulatory and information exposure risks
An up-to-date survey documentary also mentioned that the increased exposure and identifier of victim information could magnify such risks. According to Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp, the situation in France is a cause for alarm in other countries, as it shows that when financial compliance and identity are increasing, there is a real risk that the data may be misused.
At present, the French official has not disclosed in this report a more disaggregated time line or victim structure for 77 cases, but the crime in question has been explicitly recognized as a national security issue and intends to continue to expand the scope of the fight.