France has charged 88 suspects, more than 10 of them minors, across 12 active judicial investigations into a wave of violent crypto “wrench attacks,” in a sweeping crackdown on organized gangs targeting crypto holders.
The charges cover kidnapping, unlawful confinement, extortion, and money laundering, all committed by organized gangs, according to Vanessa Perrée, National Prosecutor for Organized Crime at the French Ministry of Justice.
The charges reflect the full scale of a crisis that has made France the global epicenter of wrench attacks, violent physical crimes in which criminals coerce crypto holders into surrendering their digital assets.
French law enforcement has recorded 135 crypto-related incidents since 2023, including 18 in 2024, 67 in 2025, and 47 already in 2026, which officials described as the result of “structured criminal networks.”
Last week, three men aged 25–30 were detained over a November 2025 kidnapping in Challes-les-Eaux, followed days later by three more arrests, two already charged in that case, linked to a separate December kidnapping in Dompierre-sur-Mer.
All six have been placed in pre-trial detention.
Jonathan Riss, Blockchain Intelligence Analyst at CertiK, told Decrypt that the masterminds behind these attacks are frequently insulated from arrest.
"The masterminds are often based abroad, outside the EU and out of immediate reach of authorities, operating through local middlemen and young executors," he said.
"That commercial layer is compounded by insider state leaks: for a few thousand euros, civil servants have proven willing to resell highly valuable information."
He said the problem runs deeper than France's numbers suggest.
"Some regions are clearly underreporting: most cases are still recorded as standard robberies with no crypto tag, and victims often stay silent over fear of retaliation or tax exposure," Riss said. "Not every country treats wrench attacks the same way — some jurisdictions lack the legal framework or law enforcement training to categorize crypto-related coercion as a distinct crime."
Crypto attacks in FranceThe crackdown follows a relentless series of high-profile attacks that have shaken France's crypto community.
