On May 13th, the daughter of Pierre Noizat, the co-founder and CEO of French cryptocurrency exchange Paymium, was involved in a thrilling attempted kidnapping on the streets of Paris. Fortunately, she and the passers-by fought back bravely and successfully foiled the kidnappers’ plot.
That day, Neuzat’s daughter was taking a walk with her son in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, accompanied by a male companion. Suddenly, three masked men rushed towards them, attempting to force Neuzat’s daughter and her young son into a waiting van.
When the male companion who was traveling with him tried to stop him, the gangster beat him up violently. However, Neuzat’s daughter did not just sit and wait to die. In a fierce scuffle, she struggled to snatch a gun from an attacker and quickly threw it far away. The police confirmed this heroic act.
At the critical moment, passers-by extended a helping hand one after another. Under the threat of the crowd, the three masked criminals, seeing the situation was not good, hurriedly jumped onto the van and fled the scene. Subsequently, the police found the vehicle used in the crime nearby.
In this incident, Neuzat’s daughter, her son and the male companion who was traveling with her were all injured and were rushed to the local hospital for treatment. According to France 24, the French state-owned media, the local police department specializing in combating crimes – the “Bandit Unit” of the special police force of the French Ministry of the Interior – has intervened in the investigation of this kidnapping case that occurred in broad daylight but ended in failure.
Michael Englander, the co-founder and CEO of the Polish cryptocurrency exchange Plasbit, pointed out that this incident has sounded the alarm for the entire cryptocurrency industry. In a post he made on May 13th, he said, “If you are in the cryptocurrency industry and still show off your wealth online, you are not only stupid but also putting your family in danger.”
In recent years, offline attack incidents related to cryptocurrencies have been on the rise. Sasha Hodder, a lawyer specializing in the field of cryptocurrencies, said on social platform X: “The means of cryptocurrency theft are constantly evolving and are no longer limited to methods such as social engineering or SIM card exchanges nowadays.”
In May of this year, Las Vegas police said that three teenagers were suspected of kidnapping a man who had just attended a local cryptocurrency event at gunpoint and robbing him of $4 million worth of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTS). On May 3rd, the Paris police successfully rescued the father of a cryptocurrency entrepreneur who had been kidnapped for several days. The kidnapping case involved a ransom of 7 million euros (approximately 7.8 million US dollars). In the early morning of January 21st at the beginning of this year, David Baland, the co-founder of the crypto hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger, was kidnapped at his home in central France and was not released until the police launched an operation on the night of January 22nd.
Jameson Lopp, the co-founder of the cryptopunks and self-hosted company Casa, has created a list on GitHub documenting dozens of offline cryptocurrency robbery incidents. Data shows that as of now this year, there have been 22 incidents of face-to-face theft related to cryptocurrencies. A study by the University of Cambridge in September found that due to the fear of being victimized again, there are often insufficient reports of such so-called “violent coercion attacks”. Moreover, the composition of those who carry out such attacks is complex, involving everything from organized crime groups to the friends and family of the victims. The experience of Neuzat’s daughter this time undoubtedly once again highlights the security risks faced by practitioners in the cryptocurrency industry and their families.
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