Masked gunmen tie up woman in France and steal crypto USB

Three masked men broke into a house in Manosque, France, on Monday evening, tied up a woman at gunpoint and stole a USB stick containing her partner’s crypto data.

The incident took place at a home on Chemin Champs de Pruniers in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, according to a French outlet Le Parisien.

The attackers threatened the victim with a gun and punched her before taking the USB drive and fleeing.

The victim, who was reportedly unharmed, managed to free himself within minutes and contacted police. An investigation has been opened and entrusted to the local criminal investigation department and the regional directorate of the national police.

Last year, Jameson Lopp, CTO of security company Casa, documented more than 70 crypto-related wrench attacks publicly available worldwide databasewith France emerging as a European hotspot for violent crypto-related crime, with more than 14 such incidents reported.

“France’s combination of a relatively high base level of criminal activity, visible concentrations of crypto wealth among founders, traders and public figures, and growing local expertise in digital assets creates fertile conditions for more opportunistic and organized crypto-related crime,” cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek told me. Declutter.

Baek said it is reasonable to expect that some established criminal networks in France will increasingly lure crypto into crimes when it offers “better margins,” “faster cross-border transfers” or “lower perceived traceability” than cash or traditional banking channels.

“Global liquidity, markets that never close and the ability to move large amounts of money across borders almost instantly” make crypto an attractive target for criminals, he added.

The case comes amid revelations that a French tax official was charged last June with abusing access to state tax databases to identify potential targets, including cryptocurrency investors, and passing on their personal information to criminal actors.

According to a separate report from Le Parisienthe officer used internal tax software to search for addresses, income information and family information unrelated to her duties, in at least one case prior to a violent home invasion.

Judges said the searches could not be justified by her role, which focused on corporate tax.