CRYPTOCURRENCY, KIDNAPPING AND CUT FINGER | M6 | 66 minutes

David Balland’s success story is enough to make anyone jealous. The 36-year-old from Corrèze is at the head of a veritable empire. In 2014, he co-founded cryptocurrency specialist Ledger with Eric Larchevèque, star entrepreneur on the TV show “Qui veut être mon associé?”. The Cher-based company’s turnover is now close to a billion euros. But David Balland is not the blinged-out type. He has the looks of a teenager and leads a quiet life in a house with no apparent luxuries, two hours’ drive from Paris. However, it seems that his bank account has attracted the attention of some ill-intentioned people, and on Tuesday January 21st his life was turned upside down: he and his partner were kidnapped from their home in Méreau. His partner Eric Larchevèque raised the alarm after receiving a video of the thirty-year-old’s mutilated finger, along with a ransom demand. The kidnappers reportedly demanded 10 million euros in cryptocurrency. More than 230 gendarmes were mobilized to find the entrepreneur and his companion. And after a meticulous investigation, the forces of law and order managed to locate and rescue him in a house in Chateauroux on Wednesday evening. His companion, Amandine, was also found safe and sound in the boot of a car in a parking lot in Essonne.

In this case, 10 people, 9 men and one woman aged between 20 and 40, were arrested. Most of them were allegedly recruited on social networks to carry out the kidnapping.

But who are the masterminds behind this attack? Are cryptocurrency specialists ideal targets for these networks? And how did the gendarmes avoid the worst?