France's Crypto Kidnapping Wave Is Tied to State Data Leaks

 


France has recorded 41 kidnappings targeting crypto holders in the first three and a half months of 2026. That already exceeds the roughly 30 cases logged across all of 2025, according to Annabelle Vandendriessche of France's Interior Ministry Sirasco unit.

Philippe Chadrys, deputy national director of the French judicial police, confirmed the figures at an April 16 press briefing. Both institutional crypto players and individual investors have been targeted. Masterminds often operate from abroad. Targets are sometimes identified by foot soldiers only at the last moment.

What is driving the surge points to state-level data failures.

Pavel Durov, Telegram's founder, posted on X that the kidnappings connect to a specific chain. A tax official identified as Ghalia C. allegedly sold crypto investor data to criminals. Separately, France's National Agency for Secure Documents, known as ANTS, confirmed its portal was breached on April 15. Up to 19 million records may have been exposed: full names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth.

That is the data criminals use to find people.

Durov went further in a second X post. He said Telegram would rather exit the French market than hand over private message access to French authorities. His reasoning was simple: France has already shown it cannot protect what it collects. Adding more data into that system adds more victims.

French prosecutors have charged 88 individuals across more than a dozen kidnapping cases, including over 10 minors. Cases include a mother and her 11-year-old son abducted in Burgundy and a group in Anglet who allegedly seized crypto, computers, and jewelry before being arrested at a Paris train station.

One consistent thread runs through the pattern. Investor identity data is getting from government systems into criminal hands. The Ghalia C. case showed it happening through a corrupt official. The ANTS breach showed it happening at scale.

The full breakdown of the breach, the tax official case, and what Durov's Telegram threat means for crypto investor privacy in France is covered in full at CryptoNewsLive.org.

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