Five men in London convicted of kidnapping and assaulting French crypto millionaires

According to Decrypt, the Central Criminal Court in London recently handed down a ruling in a violent kidnapping case targeting cryptocurrency holders. Five men were found guilty of unlawfully detaining two French cryptocurrency millionaires, with Gerson Borges and Mohamed Osman additionally convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion. The two victims, both French men in their early twenties, were ambushed in Shadwell, London, last July and taken to an apartment in Canning Town, East London, where they were held captive for 52 hours. During this time, they were stripped, bound, beaten, and subjected to scalding water. The perpetrators demanded a $150,000 ransom, and the victims were ultimately forced to transfer $30,000. Prosecutors noted that the victims’ ostentatious lifestyles on social media may have drawn the attention of the criminals. Notably, the convictions were secured despite neither victim testifying in court—a scenario police described as “rare.”