A couple in Alès, in southern France, were tied up in their home by two armed, masked intruders who demanded cryptocurrency transfers before fleeing as police were called, according to local reports cited by crypto.news.
The victims were threatened for more than two hours while their young child was inside the house. Neighbors heard screams and alerted police, prompting the attackers to leave before officers arrived. Investigators from the Organized and Specialized Crime Division, or DCOS, in Nîmes have taken over the case, and no arrests were reported in the initial account.
Attack reported at family home
The incident unfolded at the couple’s residence in Alès, where the two intruders allegedly restrained the victims and pressured them to carry out cryptocurrency transactions. The report said the assailants were armed and masked, and that the ordeal lasted for more than two hours.
The attackers escaped before police reached the scene. The presence of the couple’s young child inside the home added to the seriousness of the case, although the initial report did not say that any transfer was completed or that the suspects were immediately identified.
Part of a wider French pattern
The Alès home invasion comes amid a broader wave of crimes in France targeting people believed to hold digital assets, as well as their relatives. French authorities have been dealing with kidnappings, robberies and extortion attempts linked to cryptocurrency ownership throughout 2026.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said in July that France had recorded 77 cases involving kidnapping, unlawful detention, extortion or attempted crimes connected to cryptocurrency by the end of June. That total had already exceeded the 45 cases recorded during all of 2025. A later local report put the number of similar incidents since January at 80, slightly above the earlier government count.
Nuñez also said some of the people directing the attacks appeared to be operating from outside France, with lower-level recruits allegedly used to carry out the violence inside the country.
Data shows growth in violent crypto crimes
Separate figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis also pointed to a rise in physical attacks, though using a narrower methodology than French authorities. The firm recorded 30 publicly documented violent crypto incidents in France during the first half of 2026, compared with 19 during all of 2025.
Globally, Chainalysis estimated in August that more than $30 million had been extracted through successful physical crypto attacks in the first half of 2026. It said only 12 of 46 documented incidents resulted in payment, for a success rate of 26%, down from 49% in 2025 and 67% in 2024.
Home invasions accounted for 37% of the cases documented by Chainalysis in the first half of the year, up from 14% in 2025. Kidnappings made up 52%, though the firm noted that categories can overlap when a home invasion turns into detention or forced movement. It also said family members and other close contacts represented about 25% to 30% of documented victims by early 2026.
France heavily represented in security firm records
Cybersecurity firm CertiK reported a similar increase. It documented 52 wrench attacks worldwide in the first six months of 2026, up 33.3% from 39 in the same period a year earlier.
CertiK said the financial exposure tied to those incidents reached $124.1 million, compared with about $10.5 million a year earlier. The company said that figure included stolen funds, ransom demands, frozen assets and other values associated with documented cases, so it did not represent confirmed criminal proceeds.
In CertiK’s dataset, France accounted for 33 of the 52 verified incidents, or 63.5% of the global total, while Europe recorded 39 cases. The firm said home invasions showed one of the sharpest increases, rising from one case in the first half of 2025 to 20 in the same period this year.
Recent cases show how attacks are unfolding
The Alès case follows another attack on a French couple less than a month earlier. During the night of Aug. 10 to Aug. 11 in Rion-des-Landes, several people allegedly entered a home seeking access to a large amount of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Both residents were taken from the property; the man was later found naked and injured, while the woman was recovered in another department. Two men were arrested, and the Bordeaux specialized jurisdiction took over that investigation.
In another case in Yvelines in March, three people posing as police officers entered a couple’s home and threatened them with a knife while demanding cryptocurrency. The husband was forced to transfer about €900,000 in Bitcoin, worth roughly $980,000 at the time, before the attackers tied him up and fled.
French crypto industry workers have also been targeted. In April, a man disguised as a delivery worker entered the home of a crypto-sector employee and allegedly tried to force him at gunpoint to hand over his private keys. The victim managed to overpower the intruder after a struggle, and police later arrested a 25-year-old suspect, who was charged by a Montpellier court with attempted armed robbery and remanded in custody. For the Alès investigation, the next confirmed step is the DCOS inquiry in Nîmes, with no arrests announced in the initial report.
Source: crypto.news