Passing neighbor rescues women imprisoned in crypto kidnapping

With the help of a passing neighbor, a woman and her mother were able to escape from the garage they were imprisoned in a cryptocurrency-linked kidnapping, police in southern France said.

The pair had been held for 30 hours before they were able to take advantage of their captor’s absence to pound on the garage door. A neighbor who heard the noise opened the door to free them, Lyon prosecutor Thierry Dran said in a press conference after the escape on Friday, Feb. 6, in Bourg-lès-Valence.

Two days later, six people were arrested, according to BFMTV. Most are in their 20s; one is a minor.

The women — ages 35 and 67 — were taken to a hospital after their escape for treatment of unspecified injuries.

The case renews focus on the recent rise in crypto-linked kidnappings in France and elsewhere, often involving high-profile individuals and those linked to them. Searches are ongoing in the United States after the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie. Purported ransom notes have demanded millions in bitcoin for her return, CNN has reported.

In the latest French case, as many as 160 officers were involved in the hunt for the two women, abducted late Wednesday, Feb. 4. The daughter’s husband – an associate in a start-up that has cryptocurrency activities – said he received a phone message demanding that he pay a ransom in crypotocurrency or his wife would be mutilated.

Some believe bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are untraceable – and therefore useful in ransom demands – but experts say this is a misconception. “Crypto works on a blockchain, and the blockchain is a public registry where everything is visible, everything is trackable and everything is auditable,” Renaud Lifchitz, a French IT senior security consultant, told CNN last year.

Last week, Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade, vice president for intelligence and security research at SentinelOne, told CNN that bitcoin is one of the “most traceable currencies we’ve ever had.”

Among recent crypto-related kidnappings in France and Belgium:

• In December 2024, the wife of crypto investor and influencer Stéphane Winkel was kidnapped from the couple’s home in Belgium. She was rescued after her kidnapper crashed his car in a dramatic police chase.

• In January 2025, David Balland, cofounder of the crypto wallet company Ledger, was kidnapped with his wife from their home in central France. Before the couple was freed, the assailants sent a video of Balland’s severed finger to his business partner Eric Larchevêque and demanded ransom money.

• In May 2025, the father of a man who ran a Malta-based cryptocurrency company was kidnapped by four hooded men in Paris. The victim, whose finger was also severed by the kidnappers and for whom a ransom of several million euros was demanded, was released 58 hours later in a raid by security forces.

• Also in May 2025, masked men attempted to kidnap the pregnant daughter and young grandson of Paymium CEO Pierre Noizat near their Paris home. The woman’s husband and a neighbor armed with a fire extinguisher thwarted the abduction.

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