French authorities have recorded 90 cases involving kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats, and violent theft related to cryptocurrencies in just over seven months.
The figures, provided to Cointelegraph by the French Interior Ministry, are from Jan. 1 to mid-August 2026. Authorities also recorded 223 arrests, and 126 people were imprisoned from January to July.
The figures equate to a new case every two and a half days, although there is no official year-on-year comparison to understand if the problem has become suddenly worse: “We do not have the statistics on these items for 2025, as the recording of events began on Jan. 1, 2026,” the ministry says.
What makes the new numbers even more striking is they are much higher than other public trackers of meatspace attacks.
Chainalysis counted 30 publicly known violent crypto incidents in France through mid-2026, but noted that the scale was “almost certainly larger.” Security…
