A French court has sent a 23-year-old man to prison for 30 months for firing a Glock pistol at hooded men who, he says, had just tried to abduct him. The sentence came on Wednesday 4 November in La Roche-sur-Yon, in western France, in a case that may belong to the crypto wrench attack wave in France but that nobody has yet tied to it. The criminal court, sitting in a fast-track hearing (comparution immédiate), rejected his plea of self-defence, Actu17 reported on 5 November, citing the regional daily Ouest-France.
The court added a 15-year ban on carrying a weapon and a five-year ban on staying in the Vendée department. Actu17 and Cryptoast both give the term as two and a half years, firm, and he stays in detention.
The men he fired at have not been identified. According to Actu17, they are still being sought and the inquiry into the attempted abduction goes on. At least one English-language report says the attackers were taken into custody. The French reports we read say nothing of the kind, and we found no report of an arrest.
The crypto angle is a lead, nothing more. His lawyer told the court that his client holds cryptocurrency. Investigators were leaning towards a crypto motive, Ouest-France reported, but in the paper’s words relayed by Cryptoast, that lead still had to be confirmed.
Halloween in La Roche-sur-Yon: an alleged abduction, then shots from a balcony
It happened on Saturday 31 October, in a housing estate of La Roche-sur-Yon, the main town of Vendée, while children in costumes went from door to door. Around 5:30 pm, the 23-year-old ran to his father’s house and said he had just escaped an abduction attempt, Actu17 reports. That account is his own and has not been tested in court.
About half an hour later, two hooded men kicked at the front door while the father tried to hold it shut. The son took a Glock upstairs and fired several times from the balcony as one of the men climbed the front of the house.
One bullet lodged above a garage door a few metres from children, according to Actu17, and a witness spoke of shots fired towards the car. The men fled by car. Actu17 says that vehicle carried false number plates and was caught by a speed camera in the Paris region a few hours later. Cryptoast and Journal du Coin, also drawing on Ouest-France, describe a stolen car that was first reported abandoned near the house, and Cryptoast says the men left a hood and a phone behind.
When the police arrived, the father did not want to let them into the house, Cryptoast reports. The Glock turned up in a laundry basket. Father and son were both taken into police custody (garde à vue), and nothing has been published since on the father’s case.
The prosecutor called it revenge, not self-defence
At the hearing, vice-prosecutor Olivier Dubief rejected self-defence. “At the moment he fires, the gentleman was no longer in danger,” he said, as quoted in French by Actu17, which also reports him calling the shots an act of revenge. Cryptoast adds that the prosecution pointed out that the man on the balcony had already climbed back down.
The defence lawyer, Jean-Baptiste Colombani, set the shooting against his client’s past. The young man bought a weapon after a first kidnapping in 2022, the lawyer said, according to Actu17, and he raised a possible link with the cryptocurrency his client holds. Cryptoast reports that the 2022 abduction was meant to steal crypto.
Colombani also argued that the attackers had driven from the Paris region on a punitive expedition. His client told the court he panicked and fired only to scare them off. The court did not follow him.
What self-defence means in French law
Article 122-5 of the French penal code accepts self-defence only when the response comes at the same time as the attack and stays in proportion to it. The prosecutor’s argument, that the danger had passed when the trigger was pulled, goes to the first of those conditions. The court’s reasoning has not been published, and none of the reports we read says what sentence the prosecution asked for.
From an attempted murder inquiry to aggravated violence
The case changed shape within days. The prosecutor first opened an inquiry for attempted murder, Cryptoast reported on 4 November, citing Ouest-France. After 48 hours of police custody, a magistrate reclassified the facts as aggravated violence and possession of a weapon and ammunition, and the man was held in pre-trial detention until the hearing on 4 November.
Journal du Coin gave the same charges that morning. We found no statement from the prosecutor’s office or from the court.
A man kidnapped in 2022 and convicted in 2025
His own record weighs on the story. In 2022, according to Actu17, he was kidnapped and locked in the boot of a car in Nantes before he managed to get out. He says that is why he carried a gun.
He was also convicted in 2025 of violence and sequestration, Actu17 and Cryptoast report, with no detail of that case. We do not know who was involved, and we publish no more about it than the French press has.
The crypto link is still a lead, not a fact
Nothing in the court reports shows that the hooded men were after cryptocurrency. What exists is a lawyer’s statement that his client holds some, and a lead that investigators favoured, according to Ouest-France as relayed by Cryptoast, but that still had to be confirmed. Journal du Coin called it a credible hypothesis whose link with crypto remains to be established.
The attackers, if they are found, are presumed innocent, and so is the father, whose legal position is unknown. No one has been reported charged over the alleged abduction attempt.
Crypto wrench attacks in France: 77 cases in six months
The case comes from the country that leads the world tally of physical attacks on crypto holders this year. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on 30 June 2026 that 77 kidnappings, extortion cases and extortion attempts linked to crypto had been recorded in the first half of the year, against 45 in the whole of 2025, Cointelegraph reported on 2 July.
| Indicator | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Crypto-linked kidnappings, extortion and attempts, January to June 2026 | 77 | Interior Minister, 30 June 2026 (via Cointelegraph) |
| Same count for the whole of 2025 | 45 | Interior Minister, 30 June 2026 |
| Arrests made under the emergency measures | 200 | Interior Minister, 30 June 2026 |
| Sign-ups to the rapid-alert and protection system | 724 | Interior Minister, 30 June 2026 |
| Crypto owners in France (about 11% of the population) | About 7.3 million | ADAN, via Cointelegraph |
The best-known case came first. On 21 January 2025, Ledger co-founder David Balland and his partner were abducted from their home in the Cher department. The GIGN gendarmerie unit freed him the next day in Châteauroux, and his partner was found that night in Essonne, Journal du Geek reported.
On 1 May 2025, the father of a French crypto entrepreneur was pushed into a van in Paris by four masked men, who cut off one of his fingers and demanded 5 to 7 million euros. Police freed him on the night of 3 May and arrested five men in their twenties, the four abductors and their driver, The Block reported. No ransom was paid.
Coindaro has tracked the wave beyond France. Jameson Lopp’s public list of physical attacks reached 702 entries, with France leading in 2026, as we reported in our piece on Lopp’s wrench attack count. In the UK, three men were jailed over a crypto home invasion in Bristol. In Texas, two brothers got 15 and 15.5 years for forcing a father to move $8 million in crypto at gunpoint, and in Canada three soldiers were among seven people charged after an armed abduction in Toronto.
In each of those cases the attackers faced the court. In La Roche-sur-Yon, the only person sentenced so far is the man who says he was the target.
The government plan, and what holders can do
With his June figures, Nuñez set out a plan in three parts, according to Cointelegraph: more intelligence sharing, because the networks are often based abroad, a closer partnership with ADAN, the French crypto industry association, and better coordination between security services. Cointelegraph also cites a recent case in which an attacker was arrested within eight hours, partly because the victim had used the emergency hotline.
The usual precautions for holders are simple. Say little about what you own, keep coins on a hardware wallet rather than on a phone, and split access so that no one person or device can move everything under threat. Our step-by-step guide to setting up a hardware wallet covers the basics.
The Vendée verdict marks a limit no official advice spells out. A French court will not treat shots fired once the danger has passed as self-defence, whatever the threat that came before.
What we still do not know
- Whether the hooded men have been identified or arrested since 5 November: no report says so.
- Whether the man holds cryptocurrency, which rests on his lawyer’s word.
- What the prosecution asked for at the hearing.
- What happened to the father, who was also held in custody.
- Whether the man will appeal.
The inquiry into the attempted abduction is the next thing to watch. An arrest there would be the first real test of the lawyer’s claim that crypto was what the hooded men wanted.