French couple tied up in home as armed attackers demand crypto transfers

A couple in the southern French city of Alès have been tied up and threatened for more than two hours by two armed intruders who demanded cryptocurrency transactions before fleeing as police arrived.

According to local media reports, the attack took place early Saturday at the couple’s home in a residential area on the heights of Alès, where two masked and gloved individuals entered carrying a handgun and a knife.

The assailants restrained both victims and threatened them while trying to obtain assets through cryptocurrency transactions. The couple’s young child was inside the house during the attack.

Neighbors heard screams from the property and contacted officers from the Alès police station. The attackers fled when police arrived, leaving the victims behind.

Investigators from the Organized and Specialized Crime Division, or DCOS, in Nîmes have taken over the investigation. No arrests were reported in the initial account.

Alès crypto attack follows dozens of cases in France

The home invasion comes as French authorities deal with a series of kidnappings, robberies and extortion attempts targeting cryptocurrency holders and their relatives.

France had recorded 77 cases involving kidnapping, unlawful detention, extortion or attempted crimes connected to cryptocurrency by the end of June, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said in July. The total had already surpassed the 45 cases recorded throughout 2025.

Crypto.news previously reported that authorities had arrested around 200 people following attacks or preventive operations. Nuñez said authorities were expanding intelligence sharing, expert networks and cooperation with other countries in response to the cases.

Some people directing the attacks appeared to be operating from outside France, according to Nuñez, while lower-level recruits were being used to carry out the violence.

The latest local report said 80 similar incidents have now been recorded since January, putting the figure slightly above the government count disclosed earlier this summer.

Separate data from Chainalysis showed that France recorded 30 publicly documented violent crypto incidents during the first half of 2026, compared with 19 throughout 2025. The analytics firm used a narrower methodology than French authorities, accounting for the difference between the two figures.

Home invasions have become a common crypto attack method

Physical attacks against cryptocurrency holders have increasingly involved criminals entering victims’ homes and using threats or violence to obtain access to digital assets.

Chainalysis estimated in August that criminals had extracted more than $30 million through successful physical crypto attacks worldwide during the first half of 2026.

Only 12 of the 46 documented incidents resulted in payments, putting the success rate at 26%. The comparable rate stood at 49% in 2025 and 67% in 2024.

Home invasions represented 37% of documented cases through the first half of this year, up from 14% in 2025. Kidnappings accounted for 52%, although Chainalysis noted that categories can overlap when a home invasion develops into detention or forced movement.

Family members and other people connected to cryptocurrency holders accounted for around 25% to 30% of documented cases by early 2026.

CertiK recorded a similar increase in physical attacks. The security firm documented 52 wrench attacks worldwide during the first six months of 2026, up 33.3% from 39 during the same period last year.

Financial exposure connected to those incidents reached $124.1 million, compared with approximately $10.5 million a year earlier. CertiK said the figure included stolen funds, ransom demands, frozen assets and other values connected to documented cases, meaning it did not represent confirmed criminal proceeds.

France accounted for 33 of the 52 verified incidents in CertiK’s dataset, representing 63.5% of the worldwide total. Europe recorded 39 cases.

Home invasions showed one of the largest increases in the firm’s data, rising from one case during the first half of 2025 to 20 during the same period this year. Kidnappings increased from 12 to 16, while four torture cases and one murder were documented.

French couples have faced similar crypto home attacks

The Alès incident follows another attack involving a French couple less than a month earlier.

During the night of Aug. 10 to Aug. 11, several people entered a home in Rion-des-Landes and allegedly sought access to a large amount of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Both residents were taken from the property during the alleged crypto extortion. 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 the investigation.

An earlier home invasion in Yvelines involved three people posing as police officers. The attackers entered a couple’s residence in March and threatened the victims with a knife while demanding cryptocurrency.

The husband was forced to transfer roughly €900,000 in Bitcoin before the attackers tied him up and fled. The cryptocurrency was worth approximately $980,000 at the time.

People working directly in the crypto sector have faced similar attacks. In April, a man posing as a delivery worker entered the home of a French crypto industry employee and tried to force him to surrender his private keys at gunpoint.

The victim fought with the intruder and managed to wrestle away the firearm after the attacker stopped to contact an accomplice. Neighbors alerted police as the struggle moved outside the home.

Officers arrested a 25-year-old suspect three days later following the armed home invasion. A Montpellier court charged him with attempted armed robbery and remanded him in custody.