By Elizabeth Howcroft
PARIS (Reuters) – A co-founder of French crypto company Ledger was released on Wednesday after being kidnapped from his home in France, the prosecutor’s office in Paris said.
David Balland was kidnapped early on Tuesday morning at his home in central France and taken by car to another address where he was held captive, the prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.
The kidnappers demanded a “large ransom in cryptocurrency”, they said, without giving its size or saying whether it had been paid.
Balland was freed on Wednesday and received medical treatment from the emergency services, the statement said.
The rescue operation involved the GIGN, one of France’s elite tactical police units, and police are continuing to investigate in order to identify and arrest all the perpetrators, it said, without elaborating.
Ledger, founded in 2014, is one of France’s top crypto companies. It sells “hardware wallets” – physical devices for storing crypto assets. Balland is one of eight co-founders, the company’s website says.
In 2021, Ledger raised $380 million in a funding round which valued it at $1.5 billion.
The Paris prosecutor’s office’s organised crime and cybercrime units are involved in the investigation, the statement added.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in Paris; Editing by Gareth Jones)
