Three masked men broke into a house in Manosque, France, on Monday evening, tied up a woman at gunpoint and stole a USB drive containing her partner's crypto data.
According to the French publication, the incident occurred in a house on Chemin-Champs-de-Pruniers in the Alps of Haute-Provence. Parisian.
The attackers threatened the victim with a gun and hit her before taking the USB drive and fleeing.
The victim, who was reportedly unharmed, managed to free herself within minutes and contacted police. An investigation has been initiated and assigned to the local criminal investigation department and the regional department of the national police.
Last year, Jameson Lopp, technical director of security firm Casa, documented more than 70 cryptographic attacks all over the world in its public databaseFrance has become a European hotspot for violent crimes related to cryptocurrency, with more than 14 such incidents reported.
“The combination of a relatively high baseline level of criminal activity in France, a visible concentration of crypto wealth among founders, traders and public figures, and growing local expertise in digital assets creates fertile conditions for more opportunistic and organized cryptocurrency-related crime,” said cybercrime consultant David Sehyun Paek. Decipher.
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Back said it was reasonable to expect some established criminal networks in France to increasingly use cryptocurrency in crimes when it offers “better returns”, “faster cross-border transfers” or “less perceived traceability” than cash or traditional banking channels.
“Global liquidity, never-closed markets and the ability to move large sums of money across borders almost instantly” make crypto an attractive target for criminals, he added.
The case comes amid reports that a French tax official was charged last June with abusing access to government tax databases to identify potential targets, including cryptocurrency investors, and passing on their personal information to criminals.
According to a separate report ParisianThe employee used internal tax software to look up addresses, income and family information unrelated to her duties on at least one occasion that preceded a violent home invasion.
The judges said the searches could not be justified by her corporate tax role.
