Crypto Millionaire’s Father Freed in Dramatic French Police Raid—Proving Even Bitcoin Can’t Buy Family Safety
French authorities swooped in to rescue the kidnapped father of a cryptocurrency millionaire—because nothing says ’digital wealth’ like old-fashioned ransom demands.
The operation cuts through the crypto elite’s illusion of anonymity, exposing the very physical risks that come with flashing blockchain profits in the real world.
Meanwhile, traditional finance bros smirk—at least their trust funds come with private security details.
Wrench attacks continue
The incident represents the latest in what security experts call "wrench attacks"—physical threats used to override crypto’s digital security measures.
The term originates from a 2012 XKCD comic, according to the first comprehensive study on wrench attacks done by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University College of London, as previously reported by Decrypt.
These kinds of attacks "undermine the efficacy of existing digital security norms when confronted with real-world threats," the researchers said.
In January, Ledger co-founder David Balland was kidnapped and mutilated before police rescued him in what Ledger Chairman and CEO Pascal Gauthier described as a "traumatic situation that we hope will never be repeated."
Jameson Lopp, co-founder and chief technology officer of Bitcoin security firm Casa, documents physical Bitcoin attacks in a GitHub repository. The list shows the Paris incident as the 21st attack this year.
Wrench attacks are "roughly correlated with the size of the market and overall adoption of crypto," Lopp told Decrypt in February.
Security experts such as Rigel Walshe, developer at Swan Bitcoin and former police constable in the New Zealand Police Force, urge crypto holders to practice "relaxed awareness" and stay "alert and prepared," among other easy security measures that could be done to prevent wrench attacks.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
