![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/1317369_6603043_France-po_akhbar.jpg\")
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A representational image of French police secure an area in the La D\u00e9fense business and financial district near Paris, France on December 13, 2019. \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n
PARIS: Twenty-five people, including six minors, were charged in Paris over a spate of kidnappings and attempted abductions of top figures in France\u2019s cryptocurrency world, prosecutors said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighteen people have been placed in pre-trial detention, three have requested a deferred hearing, and four have been placed under judicial supervision,\u201d the Paris public prosecutor\u2019s office said, adding that the suspects were aged between 16 and 23.<\/p>\n
The investigation into \u201cattempted kidnapping by an organised gang\u201d centres on a May 13 kidnapping attempt targeting the daughter and grandson of the chief executive officer of crypto firm Paymium, carried out in broad daylight in eastern Paris.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the probe also covers \u201cother unsuccessful plans\u201d, including an initial failed attempt on the same targets the day before, and a disrupted operation near the western city of Nantes on Monday.<\/p>\n
Authorities said this week they had thwarted the Nantes abduction and detained more than 20 suspects in connection with that plot and the one targeting Paymium boss Pierre Noizat\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
Footage of that attempted abduction shared on social media showed four masked men attacking Noizat\u2019s daughter, her husband and their child in the French capital\u2019s 11th district in mid-May.<\/p>\n
All three suffered light injuries and were taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
Noizat later praised his \u201cheroic\u201d son-in-law and a man who used a red fire extinguisher to fend off the attackers.<\/p>\n
According to a source close to the case, it was while investigating that abduction attempt that the police discovered the new plot near Nantes.<\/p>\n
Most of the suspects were born in France and others in Senegal, Angola and Russia.Among those arrested so far are suspects accused of involvement in carrying out the abductions and more senior figures believed to be involved in logistics, according to sources close to the case.<\/p>\n
Ambroise Vienet-Legue, who represents an 18-year-old suspect in the Nantes plot, described the accused as \u201cvery young\u201d, lured by money and out of their depth. \u201cMy client admitted to being a fuse in a criminal machine\u201d and deeply regrets it, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A representational image of French police secure an area in the La D\u00e9fense business and financial district near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[63598,63599,55240,23366,2259,2000,299,36,256,35511],"class_list":{"0":"post-148492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-63598","9":"tag-abduction","10":"tag-cases","11":"tag-charges","12":"tag-crypto","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-in","17":"tag-suspects"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114606094695332239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}