https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/04/europe/france-crypto-kidnappings-detained-intl
Badiss Mohamed Amide Bajjou, a 24-year-old French-Moroccan, suspected of being behind a string of violent kidnappings in France of people linked to cryptocurrency was detained Tuesday in Morocco. He was wanted by France for armed extortion and kidnapping as part of a criminal gang, according to the "red notice" for him published by Interpol.
French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin thanked Morocco on X for detaining the man, citing the "excellent judicial cooperation" between the two countries.
Bajjou had "multiple bladed weapons of different sizes" in his possession when he was taken into custody, as well as "dozens of mobile phones and communication devices" and a sum of money allegedly related to criminal activities, Moroccan state media reported.
The man was apprehended, weeks after the latest kidnapping attempt in Paris, near Tangier in northern Morocco, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV. He is allegedly linked to a string of violent crimes related to crypto funds dating back to at least January 21 of this year.
According to the media he had "multiple bladed weapons of different sizes", "dozens of mobile phones and communication devices", and money alleged to be from criminal activities.
Reported widely, including:
- https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250604-suspected-mastermind-of-french-crypto-kidnappings-held-in-morocco
- https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/06/04/suspect-in-french-crypto-kidnappings-arrested-in-morocco
See also: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=25/05/07/2330241
« Volvo is Introducing the First Multi-Adaptive Seatbelt Technology on the EX60 EV | Are Dead Sea Scrolls Older Than We Thought? »
Related Stories
From Nate Anderson over at Ars Technica:
French gendarmes have been busy policing crypto crimes, but these aren't the usual financial schemes, cons, and HODL! shenanigans one usually reads about. No, these crimes involve abductions, (multiple) severed fingers, and (multiple) people rescued from the trunks of cars—once after being doused with gasoline.
This previous weekend was particularly nuts, with an older gentleman snatched from the streets of Paris' 14th arrondissement on May 1 by men in ski masks. The 14th is a pleasant place—I highly recommend a visit to the catacombs in Place Denfert-Rochereau—and not usually the site of snatch-and-grab operations. The abducted man was apparently the father of someone who had made a packet in crypto. The kidnappers demanded a multimillion-euro ransom from the man's son.
According to Le Monde, the abducted father was taken to a house in a Parisian suburb, where one of the father's fingers was cut off in the course of ransom negotiations. Police feared "other mutilations" if they were unable to find the man, but they did locate and raid the house this weekend, arresting five people in their 20s. (According to the BBC, French police used "phone signals" to locate the house.)
[...] And a few weeks before that, attackers went to the home of someone whose son was a "crypto-influencer based in Dubai." At the father's home, the kidnappers "tied up [the father's] wife and daughter and forced him into a car. The man's influencer son received a ransom demand and contacted police. The two women were then quickly freed. The father was only discovered 24 hours later in the boot of a car in Normandy, tied up and showing signs of physical violence, having been sprinkled with petrol."
It's not just France, either. Early this year, three British men kidnapped another British man while all of them were in Spain; the kidnappers demanded 30,000 euros in crypto "or be tortured and killed." The kidnapped man escaped by jumping off a balcony 30 feet high, breaking both ankles.
Or there's the Belgian man who posted online that "his crypto wallet was now worth €1.6 million." His wife was the victim of an attempted abduction within weeks.
