‘Jackpot!’ How French police freed a cryptocurrency hostage whose finger was severed for ransom

By JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press PARIS AP Fearful that the kidnappers might sever another finger from their hostage or worse the French police commander ordered his officers with a radioed Go command to raid the house where he suspected that the father of a wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur was being held Fabrice Gardon director of Paris judicial police then waited anxiously in his unit s headquarters in the north of the French capital for the code word they use to signal that a hostage has been freed Decisively it came Jackpot With seven defendants in custody the police commander detailed in radio interviews Monday hours of drama mutilation and certainly relief that marked the latest kidnapping in France of people working in the cryptocurrency business The victim was the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies the prosecutor s office reported Attackers wearing balaclavas bundled him into a van as he was coming out of his Paris house to walk his dog last Thursday morning Gardon disclosed He stated bystanders alerted police Speaking to RTL radio he authenticated French media reports that the kidnappers severed one of the hostage s fingers He declared they sent a video to his son of the mutilation and other video of his father tied up and demanded millions of euros dollars in ransom On Saturday night police tracked the gang to a house in the Essonne region south of Paris where investigators assumed the man was being held We got there a inadequate minutes before a new ultimatum where the victim might again have suffered another mutilation Gardon revealed He gave the go-ahead for an assault by a police Search and Intervention Brigade known by its French initials BRI He then followed its progress over the radio from the judicial police headquarters After a meager moments the head of the BRI commented over the radio using what s our code Jackpot In our jargon that means All good We have freed the hostage he noted on France Info radio Obviously it was a big relief he stated The prosecutor s office declared police detained four people in or close to the house where the man was held captive and a fifth person at the wheel of a carriage thought to have been used for the alleged abduction Another two subjects were detained Sunday it disclosed It noted the police assessment is looking at an array of realizable criminal charges including kidnapping with torture or a barbaric act In January police noted a co-founder of French crypto-wallet firm Ledger David Balland was also kidnapped with his wife from their home in the Cher region of central France Police disclosed they made arrests and that the alleged kidnappers demanded a ransom in cryptocurrency from another of Ledger s co-founders A raid by France s elite National Gendarmerie Intervention Group unit that specializes in hostage situations freed Balland the next day followed the day after that by the liberation again by the GIGN of his wife ascertained tied up in a motorcycle police explained