Criminals are mass abducting cryptocurrency company owners - WSJ.

The number of kidnappings of cryptocurrency owners is increasing worldwide

Recently, there has been a series of kidnappings and attacks on cryptocurrency company owners around the world for the purpose of obtaining a ransom in cryptocurrency. This was reported by 'Glavkom' citing The Wall Street Journal.

The latest incident in Paris involved an attempt to kidnap the daughter of the head of the cryptocurrency exchange Paymium and her two-year-old child. Neighbors and the woman’s husband managed to rescue her, but the husband was injured.

In other cases, the criminals successfully executed kidnappings. For example, Ledger co-founder David Ballan was abducted last winter in France. They demanded a ransom of €10 million for his release. The police managed to find Ballan after the ransom was paid, but only a portion of the individual hostages could be freed.

According to WSJ, there have been five cases of cryptocurrency kidnappings in France in recent months, while there were dozens of such cases worldwide last year.

One of the Ledger founders, Eric Larchevêque, condemned the kidnapping situation in France, calling it the 'Mexicanization' of the country and noting the potential emigration of citizens due to this problem.

According to the publication, access to personal data of cryptocurrency owners through hacker attacks makes it easier for criminals to carry out their tasks. Therefore, representatives of the 'crypto elite' are trying to minimize risks by removing their data from public access and protecting their privacy.

The head of the Finance Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, Danilo Getmantsev, urged citizens to declare their crypto assets, explaining the necessity of this step to avoid financial risks and state control. The popularity of cryptocurrencies continues to grow, demanding improvements in security and privacy measures.