What are ‘crypto kidnappings’ and why are they on the rise?

Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan was renting a luxury New York townhouse for $40,000 a month, enjoying the fruits of his highly lucrative investments in cryptocurrency. But in May, his 17-room Manhattan home became a torture chamber in which he was held by kidnappers for 17 days.

Carturan’s captors, John Woeltz and William Duplessie, who wanted access to his cryptocurrency accounts, used brutal methods in their bid to prise open Carturan’s Bitcoin wallet, purportedly containing some $28m worth of cryptocurrency. Among other torture methods, they hung him from the building’s roof, shocked him with electrical wires and threatened him with a chainsaw.

When all else failed, they forced him to smoke crack cocaine. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful. After more than two gruelling weeks, Carturan managed to escape the townhouse and Woeltz and Duplessie were subsequently arrested and charged with kidnapping and assault.

Carturan’s ordeal was one of the latest in a spate of “wrench attacks”, which include so-called “crypto kidnappings”, combining high-tech cybertheft with old-fashioned thuggery and have been taking place in several countries around the world.

Yes. On May 31, 26 people were charged for several attempted kidnappings of a top figure in France’s cryptocurrency world, French prosecutors said.

It was the culmination of a police investigation into an “attempted kidnapping by an organised gang” of the daughter and grandson of the CEO of crypto firm Paymium in Paris on May 13, and “other unsuccessful plans”, a failed attempt on the same targets the day before, and another attempt near the western city of Nantes on June 2.

“Eighteen people have been placed in pre-trial detention, three have requested a deferred hearing, and four have been placed under judicial supervision,” the Paris public prosecutor’s office said, concerning the Paris attack. The suspects are all aged between 16 and 23.

France has been the centre of several attacks on prominent crypto entrepreneurs in recent months. But crypto-linked kidnappings have occurred in other countries, too.

In addition to the recent attempted abductions in Paris, a group of criminals kidnapped David Balland, cofounder of the cryptocurrency firm Ledger, and his wife in central France in January.