Attackers Try to Kidnap the Daughter of Paymium’s Founder in Paris
Masked attackers attempted to abduct the daughter of Paymium founder Pierre Noizat, her partner, and child in broad daylight, days after another violent crypto-related kidnapping in France.
On May 13, 2025, masked attackers tried to abduct the daughter of Paymium founder Pierre Noizat, together with her partner and their child, on a Paris street. Video of the struggle showed the family resisting as bystanders intervened, and the attempted kidnapping failed.
The attack was especially significant because Paymium was one of France’s early Bitcoin businesses and because it occurred less than two weeks after a separate kidnapping in which the father of a crypto entrepreneur was abducted, mutilated, and held for ransom. The two crimes had different victims and fact patterns, but together they demonstrated that physical attacks against people associated with digital-asset wealth were becoming a recurring security problem rather than an isolated anomaly.
French authorities and industry figures responded with heightened concern about personal protection, privacy, and the exposure created when entrepreneurs or holders are publicly associated with large digital-asset wealth. Contemporary reporting often used “crypto” as an umbrella term, but the risk was directly relevant to Bitcoin: cryptographic security cannot protect a holder from an attacker who instead targets the person or family members to obtain access to transferable assets.