France Records 90 Crypto-Related Violent Incidents This Year
Data provided to Cointelegraph by the French Ministry of the Interior shows that from January 1 to mid-August 2026, France recorded 90 incidents related to cryptocurrency, including kidnappings, abductions, extortion, threats, and violent thefts. This averages to about one incident every 2.5 days. During the same period, police made 223 arrests, with 126 individuals imprisoned from January to July.
The Ministry stated that such incidents have only been recorded in this manner since January 1, 2026, so there are no comparable statistics for 2025. Among known victims, 93% are residents of France. Public tracking is below official numbers: Chainalysis counted only 30 publicly reported violent incidents in France by mid-2026, claiming the actual scale is almost certainly larger. Security company Gart.io tracked 73 real attacks in France this year, surpassing the 66 in the U.S. and 27 in the U.K.
Eric Jardine, head of research at Chainalysis, believes the rise in attacks is likely related to large-scale data breaches. The company links the timeline to the 2024 leak of French tax data, noting that attacks began to increase in late November of that year. In January 2026, the crypto tax reporting platform Waltio disclosed a user data breach affecting about 50,000 users. The leaked content is associated with identity, address, and cryptocurrency holding information.
Cointelegraph's analysis also noted that over 40% of related attacks involved victims' relatives or acquaintances. In May, the wife of Sébastien Borget, co-founder of the blockchain gaming company The Sandbox, was the victim of an attempted kidnapping at their home in Villenoy, with six men charged. This case was not counted separately in the 90 incidents.
The investigation is coordinated by France's organized crime judicial agency, with the Parquet national anti-criminalité organisée involved in such cases. The official numbers, Chainalysis's 30 incidents, and Gart.io's 73 incidents use different recording standards and cannot be directly summed. The 223 arrests and 126 imprisonments do not equal 223 different suspects.
This is not a flow of funds from exchanges but a statistic on offline crimes against cryptocurrency holders. There are no buyers; the pressure is on residents holding crypto assets that can be linked to identity information, as well as their relatives who are drawn into the situation. The events are driven by the new official count, not by cryptocurrency prices. The beneficiaries are law enforcement agencies that obtain arrest and imprisonment numbers; the pressured are French residents whose identity, address, and holding records have already appeared in tax or reporting platform leaks, as public tracking covers only 30 incidents while the official count has reached 90.
The discrepancies among the three sets of numbers themselves are informative. The official 90 incidents include threats and violent thefts, Chainalysis only counts publicly reported violent incidents, and Gart.io counts real attacks.
Source: Public Information
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Attacks on cryptocurrency holders in France did not just emerge in 2026. Following the tax data breach in 2024, Chainalysis recorded an increase in attacks starting in late November; public cases targeting the families of crypto practitioners had already occurred in places like Paris in 2025. The Ministry of the Interior only began separately counting kidnappings, extortion, threats, and violent thefts from January 1, 2026, so the 90 incidents represent the first count under this new standard, not a year-on-year comparison with 2025. Waltio's January disclosure of a data breach affecting about 50,000 users added another layer to the identity exposure following the tax leak.
Self-custody leaves private keys with individuals while identity remains on tax and reporting platforms. Chainalysis publicly sees only 30 incidents, while the Ministry of the Interior counts 90, indicating that 60 incidents did not enter the public sample. The 223 arrests and 126 imprisonments suggest that cases have entered the organized crime prosecution system rather than remaining at the reporting stage. Over 40% involve relatives or acquaintances, and 93% of known victims' residences are in France, indicating that the targets are not transient tourists.
In contrast, there was a federal indictment in the U.S. in 2021 for a home invasion targeting Bitcoin holders, and reports of kidnappings of exchange executives' family members in the Philippines in 2024. France is currently in the statistical documentation phase: the specialized standard has just been implemented, and Gart.io's 73 incidents have already surpassed the 66 in the U.S. and 27 in the U.K. Control lies with those holding the leaked lists, not with analysis companies that only look at on-chain addresses.
Essentially, pricing power has shifted from on-chain to identity records. Coins can be stored in self-custody addresses, while names, addresses, and holding sizes remain on tax and reporting platforms. The mechanism involves separating two sets of accounts: Chainalysis counts public incidents, the Ministry of the Interior counts cases filed, and leaked data connects both sides. The new standard makes the 90 incidents visible, also indicating that the scale before 2025 cannot be compared using the same table.
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30 public incidents, 90 cases filed, the discrepancy represents unreported cases.
Coins are on addresses, names are on tax forms.
The first year under the new standard cannot be used for year-on-year comparisons.