A shocking video of a woman and a toddler being heckled by a few masked men in broad daylight in Paris has gone viral. The woman and the toddler have been identified as the daughter and the grandson of a cryptocurrency chief executive. The toddler's father saved the assault which looked like a failed kidnap bid. The incident took place at 8am on Tuesday.
According to reports, the men came down from a van which had a fake logo. Three masked individuals foved the mother and the son into the vehicle. The father stopped them and was hit with blunt objects.
The attackers had a handgun which the woman grabbed and threw away during the struggle. Reports said that it was a semi-automatic pistol, an Airsoft gun.
The woman screamed that alerted the passers-by who came to help when a resident threw a fire extinguisher at the masked men who the fled in the same vehicle.
Who is the crypto executive whose family was targeted?
The woman in the daughter of Pierre Noizat , the chief executive and co-founder of Paymium, a French cryptocurrency exchange platform founded in 2011 that describes itself as a European pioneer in Bitcoin trading. His fortune is not publicly known but he was an early Bitcoin investor and his company claimed to be the world's "oldest crypto-to-fiat exchange" platform.
'Paris not safe for crypto'
Tuesday's incident once again raised concerns over crypto executives' safety in Paris as earlier this month a 60-year-old person had got a finger chopped off by attackers who demanded his crypto-millionaire son pay a random. The man, who has not been publicly identified, was abducted in broad daylight as he walked down a street in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. Four men in ski masks forced him into a delivery van.
After being held for more than two days, armed police freed him from a house south of Paris, where five suspects in their 20s were arrested.
In January, David Balland, the co-founder of the crypto firm Ledger, which is valued at more than $1 billion, was abducted with his partner at their home in Méreau, near Bourges in central France. He also had a finger cut off.
According to reports, the men came down from a van which had a fake logo. Three masked individuals foved the mother and the son into the vehicle. The father stopped them and was hit with blunt objects.
The attackers had a handgun which the woman grabbed and threw away during the struggle. Reports said that it was a semi-automatic pistol, an Airsoft gun.
If you’re in crypto, Paris is no longer safe for you.
— Farokh (Perma/Bull) (@farokh) May 13, 2025
“The daughter of a cryptocurrency company executive narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt this morning in the heart of Paris. (Le Parisien)”
In plain day. 🫠pic.twitter.com/TO29wo8C0H
The woman screamed that alerted the passers-by who came to help when a resident threw a fire extinguisher at the masked men who the fled in the same vehicle.
Who is the crypto executive whose family was targeted?
The woman in the daughter of Pierre Noizat , the chief executive and co-founder of Paymium, a French cryptocurrency exchange platform founded in 2011 that describes itself as a European pioneer in Bitcoin trading. His fortune is not publicly known but he was an early Bitcoin investor and his company claimed to be the world's "oldest crypto-to-fiat exchange" platform.
'Paris not safe for crypto'
Tuesday's incident once again raised concerns over crypto executives' safety in Paris as earlier this month a 60-year-old person had got a finger chopped off by attackers who demanded his crypto-millionaire son pay a random. The man, who has not been publicly identified, was abducted in broad daylight as he walked down a street in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. Four men in ski masks forced him into a delivery van.
After being held for more than two days, armed police freed him from a house south of Paris, where five suspects in their 20s were arrested.
In January, David Balland, the co-founder of the crypto firm Ledger, which is valued at more than $1 billion, was abducted with his partner at their home in Méreau, near Bourges in central France. He also had a finger cut off.
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