90 Crypto Kidnappings and Robberies in 7 Months: Why France Is the Most Dangerous Country for Bitcoin Holders

The cryptography protecting your $Bitcoin is nearly unbreakable. The front door of your house is not. France has just put a number on that uncomfortable truth: 90 cases of crypto-related kidnapping, abduction, extortion, threats and violent theft between January 1 and mid-August 2026, according to figures the French Interior Ministry provided to Cointelegraph. That is a new case roughly every two and a half days.

Police made 223 arrests and jailed 126 people over the period. And yet the attacks keep spreading, from Paris to Marseille, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Grenoble and Nantes.

Why Is France the World Capital of Crypto Wrench Attacks?

A "wrench attack" is crypto slang for the oldest hack in the book: skip the encryption and threaten the person holding the keys. France has topped the global leaderboard for years. Jameson Lopp's long-running directory of physical Bitcoin attacks counts 365 cases across 60 countries since 2014, with France in first place. Security firm Gart.io has tracked 73 French attacks so far in 2026, ahead of the United States at 66 and the United Kingdom at 27. Chainalysis counted 30 publicly known violent inciden...