French authorities recorded 90 crypto-related cases involving kidnapping, extortion, threats and violent theft in seven months. What makes France such a hotspot?

French authorities have recorded 90 cases involving kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats, and violent theft related to cryptocurrencies in just over seven months.

The figures, provided to Cointelegraph by the French Interior Ministry, are from Jan. 1 to mid-August 2026. Authorities also recorded 223 arrests, and 126 people were imprisoned from January to July.

The figures equate to a new case every two and a half days, although there is no official year-on-year comparison to understand if the problem has become suddenly worse: “We do not have the statistics on these items for 2025, as the recording of events began on Jan. 1, 2026,” the ministry says.

What makes the new numbers even more striking is they are much higher than other public trackers of meatspace attacks.

Chainalysis counted 30 publicly known violent crypto incidents in France through mid-2026, but noted that the scale was “almost certainly larger.” Security firm Gart.io has tracked 73 attacks in France in the year to date, which puts France in the number one spot ahead of the USA on 66 real world attacks, and the UK on 27.

The rise in physical attacks — known as “wrench attacks” — on crypto holders in France points to something bigger than a rash of isolated incidents. Leaked personal data may be the culprit.

Wrench attacks are far from a new phenomenon. Bitcoin security advocate Jameson Lopp’s long-running directory of known physical attacks has documented 365 cases across 60 countries between 2014 and 2026, with France topping the leaderboard.

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