Armed attackers posing as police forced a French couple near Paris to transfer about $1 million in bitcoin during a violent home invasion amid a rising wave of crypto-linked kidnappings in France

Three armed men impersonating police officers carried out a violent home invasion against a French couple in their late 50s in Le Chesnay, an affluent suburb of Versailles in the western Paris region, forcing them to transfer roughly €900,000 (about $1 million) in bitcoin to attacker-controlled wallets. The attackers reportedly convinced the couple to open the door by claiming to be police, then pushed their way in, threatened the woman with a knife, and coerced her partner into sending the bitcoin before tying the victims up and fleeing in a van. The Versailles prosecutor’s office confirmed the crypto loss and has opened an investigation on charges including kidnapping, armed robbery by an organised gang, false imprisonment, and criminal conspiracy, with the case handled by the Banditry Repression Brigade, a specialised organised-crime unit of the French judicial police. No arrests had been announced at the time of reporting, and investigators are expected to rely on both traditional methods and blockchain forensics to trace the stolen funds, although recovery is considered difficult unless the bitcoin passes through regulated platforms. The incident forms part of a broader rise in physical attacks targeting cryptocurrency holders in France and globally, sometimes called “wrench attacks,” where criminals use coercion or violence to obtain private keys or force on-chain transfers. French authorities have reported dozens of organised crypto-related kidnappings and extortion cases in recent years, often linked to overseas masterminds, underscoring how traditional violent crime is increasingly intersecting with high‑value digital asset holdings and raising concerns about personal security, operational secrecy, and custody practices for wealthy crypto users.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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