Co -founder of Ledger after Brutal kidnapping again free
Vierzon in France. Image by Tijsb via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons
David Balland, the co-founder of the French Hardware Wallet Ledger, was kidnapped. The kidnappers asked for a ransom, but the police managed to free Balland.
There is a good reason why you shouldn’t handle wealth too offensive. Not only because it testifies to bad taste, but also endangered its own security.
Even more than in traditional wealth, this applies to the realm of the crypto world. David Balland, the co-founder of the popular hardware wallet Ledger, learned this in the bitter way this week. He and his wife were kidnapped in their house in a suburb of Vierzon on Tuesday morning.
The kidnappers asked for a high ransom in cryptocurrencies. According to media reports, Eric Larchevêque, another co -founder of Ledger, received a video that showed a cut finger from Balland in addition to the request. The specific amount is not known.
Larchevêque paid part of the claim. But according to the police, this was frozen only shortly afterwards. According to an observer, this was possible that the ransom was paid in Tether (USDT), the largest stable coin that willingly freezes criminal wallets. The kidnappers obviously didn’t really know what they were doing.
While Larchevêque negotiated with the kidnappers, the police determined. Fortunately, the kidnappers had not very well veiled their traces. Already on Wednesday the elite unit Gign searched a house near Balland’s place of residence. There she didn’t come across this, but found crucial information. Thanks to them, they were able to free Balland and arrest ten kidnappers. The victim is currently in the hospital because of his hand injury, but, all in all.
The kidnapping of the Ledger co-founder is a drastic and prominent case-but unfortunately only one of many. The increase in kidnapping is an unsightly side effect of the high prices, which tends to make crypto owners.
According to Jameson Lopp, who documents physical attacks on bitcoiner, this was the seventh case in the first three weeks of this year. At the beginning of the year, CoinTelegraph reported on a few cases from the previous weeks.
Among them was a kidnapping of a crypto dealer from Karachi, Pakistan, which was forced, 340.To transfer 000 dollars. In Australia, a member of the Saudi nobility was kidnapped and forced by a dating app, 40.To transfer 000 dollars to Bitcoin. In Toronta, Dean Skurka, the head of the Wonderfi Stock Exchange, was only released after a ransom was paid for one million dollars.
We reported this threatening trend in August last year. At that time, several Chinese business people had been kidnapped abroad and only released in cryptocurrencies after payment of a ransom report.
The kidnapping of David Balland at the latest should alert the industry. Jameson Lopp recommends “public persons of the space”, for example people who have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter to strengthen their “privacy and security Asap.“You shouldn’t assume that you are sure just because you live in an area with low crime.
But even personal security cannot be enough. In Le Mens in French, a man was kidnapped at the beginning of the year who had nothing to do with crypto. Instead, the kidnappers wanted to blackmail ransom from his son, who lives as a crypto influencer in Dubai. Either way, it is not a good idea to stand in public with its crypto wins.