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Three masked men broke into a home in Manosque, France, on Monday evening, tying up a woman at gunpoint and stealing a USB drive containing her partner’s crypto data.<\/span><\/p>\n The incident occurred at a residence on Chemin Champs de Pruniers in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, according to French outlet <\/span>Le Parisien<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The assailants threatened the victim with a handgun and slapped her before taking the USB drive and fleeing.<\/span><\/p>\n The victim, who was reportedly unharmed, managed to free herself within minutes and contacted police. An investigation has been opened and entrusted to the local criminal investigation department and the regional directorate of the national police.<\/span><\/p>\n Last year, Jameson Lopp, CTO of the security firm Casa, documented over 70 <\/span>crypto-related wrench attacks<\/span><\/a> globally in his publicly available <\/span>database<\/span>, with France emerging as a European hotspot for violent crypto-related crime, with more than 14 such incidents reported.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFrance\u2019s combination of a relatively high baseline level of criminal activity, visible concentrations of crypto wealth among founders, traders, and public figures, and growing local expertise in digital assets creates fertile conditions for more opportunistic and organized crypto-related crime,\u201d cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek told <\/span>Decrypt<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n