Moroccan authorities have arrested Badiss Mohamed Amide Bajjou, a French-Moroccan national accused of playing a leading role in a series of high-profile abductions aimed at cryptocurrency executives and their families in France.
According to a local media reportBajjou was arrested on Wednesday 4 June in the northern Moroccan city of Tangier.
Acting on a 2023 Interpol red notification requested by the French authorities, Morocco’s National Brigade of the Judicial Police and the General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance A coordinated operation that led to Bajou’s arrest in Tangier.
The 24-year-old, originally from Le Chesnay, west of Paris, was reportedly found in possession of several magazines weapons and a cache of mobile phones and communication devices.
The Moroccan police have also found an amount of cash that they have suspected of being linked to criminal activities. The seized electronics now undergoes technical analysis.
French public prosecutors claim that Bajjou is behind various violent kidnapping plots, including the January abduction of David Balland, co-founder of Ledger, a prominent French crypto-portion provider.
According to research sources quoted Balland was tortured by Le Parisien during the test, with one of his fingers separated by the abductors in an attempt to squeeze a crypto-los money of millions of euros. Bajjou is supposed to have played a central role in orchestrating that attack.
Bajjou’s detention adds Momentum to a radical investigation into a wave of crypto-oriented abductions throughout France.
On May 13, masked attackers tried to kidnap the daughter and grandson of Pierre Noizat, CEO of the Crypto Exchange Paymium, in broad daylight in Central Paris. The attack, recorded on video by passers -by, was thwarted by bystanders and forced the attackers to flee the stage in a van.
Ten days earlier, on 3 May, the police saved the father of a rich crypto entrepreneur, who had been imprisoned for a few days. In that case, the attackers used a stolen van disguised with a fake courier logo and demanded a ransom of € 7 million in cryptocurrency.
Following these incidents, French officials launched a series of countermeasures, including a constructed surveillance of crypto ex-executives and their families, access to police lines for emergency aid and audits for home security.
A big breakthrough came on 27 May, when the police led coordinated raids in Île-de-France and Loire-Atlantique, who arrested more than a dozen suspects.
These operations were led by the Brigade de Répression du Banditism, the elite anti-gang unit of France. The arrests revealed a loosely organized but well -connected network that reportedly recruited young agents via social media.
By 31 May, French public prosecutors formally charged 25 individuals, some as young as 16, in connection with the attempted abductions. Authorities believe that most prisoners served as foot soldiers or logistics handlers, while the brains in general remained, to Bajjou’s arrest this week.
Researchers say that the persons accused were involved in coordinated attacks using stolen vehicles, fake courier fire and pre -planned surveillance. Many of the suspects come from the Paris region, although others come from countries such as Senegal, Angola and Russia.
