Kidnapped father of crypto-millionaire rescued by French police after finger cut off
Suspects had chopped off one of the victim’s fingers and demanded between US$5.7 million and US$7.9 million from his son, authorities said
French police have arrested seven people after a weekend raid to free a man who was kidnapped in Paris to force his crypto-millionaire son to pay a ransom, prosecutors said.
The man, whose identity was not disclosed, was traced to an address in Essonne, a department south of Paris that police raided late on Saturday, the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.
He had been abducted in Paris’s southern 14th arrondissement midmorning on Thursday.
One police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said four men wearing ski masks had bundled him into a delivery van as passers-by looked on.
“The victim appears to be the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, with the crime involving a ransom demand,” the prosecutors’ statement said.
Prosecutors gave no indication of the size of the ransom demanded, but Le Parisien newspaper reported that the kidnappers had asked for between €5 million and €7 million (US$5.7 million and US$7.9 million). No payment was made, officials said.