A French couple in their late 50s was forced to transfer over 900,000 euros ($1 million) in Bitcoin during a fake police raid at their home west of Paris in the latest violent attack targeting cryptocurrency holders in France, according to TF1 Info and Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Three suspects posing as police officers entered the couple’s home Monday morning in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt, in the Yvelines department, and forced the husband to transfer the Bitcoin

The woman later freed her husband and alerted neighbors at about 9:00 am local time, according to the reports. The Versailles prosecutor’s office said the case is being investigated by the Brigade for the Repression of Banditry on allegations including sequestration, armed robbery by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy. No arrests had been announced as of Tuesday.

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Wrench attacks see alarming rise as France suffers most incidents

The attack adds to a rise in so-called wrench attacks, in which criminals use threats or violence to force crypto holders to surrender digital assets. Wrench attacks increased by 75% in 2025 to 72 verified cases worldwide, according to cybersecurity platform CertiK.

France saw the biggest number of such incidents in 2025, with 19 confirmed wrench attacks, while Europe accounted for roughly 40% of global incidents.

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France has already seen several high-profile crypto-linked abduction and home invasion cases this year. At the beginning of February, French police arrested six people over the kidnapping of a magistrate and her mother in a crypto-linked ransom attack targeting the magistrate’s partner, a crypto entrepreneur.

Days after the incident, French authorities arrested three suspects after a break-in targeting the home of an executive at Binance France.

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South Korean prosecutors have sold 320.8 Bitcoin recovered after a phishing incident temporarily removed the crypto from government custody.

The Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office said it sold 320.8 Bitcoin

Authorities reportedly sold the Bitcoin in small batches over 11 days between Feb. 24 and March 6 to avoid disrupting the market.

The Bitcoin was reportedly originally seized from a suspect accused of operating an illegal gambling website that allegedly handled about 390 billion won ($285 million) in wagers between 2018 and 2021.

Bitcoin lost in a phishing attack was returned earlier this year

Prosecutors reportedly discovered the cryptocurrency had been lost during a custody handover in August 2025 when asset managers were tricked by a phishing website. The funds were later traced to a hacker’s wallet.

The Bitcoin returned to a government-controlled wallet on Feb. 17 after authorities asked domestic and overseas exchanges to freeze the address, making it difficult to liquidate the funds.

Related: South Korean authorities under fire over $43B Bithumb Bitcoin error

On Feb. 19, the Gwangju District Prosecutors’ Office said the hacker unexpectedly sent back 320.88 Bitcoin, which were later transferred to a secure exchange wallet controlled by authorities.

South Korean courts rethink crypto losses in debt restructuring cases

In other South Korean crypto news, courts are now reportedly reconsidering how crypto-related debts are handled in personal rehabilitation cases.

According to a Sunday report from local outlet EToday, newly established rehabilitation courts in Daejeon, Daegu and Gwangju are preparing guidelines that would generally exclude stock and cryptocurrency investment losses from liquidation value calculations.

The shift would treat crypto investment losses more like ordinary asset losses rather than speculative debts, potentially lowering repayment obligations for individuals undergoing court-supervised debt restructuring, EToday reported.

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Public institutions are under pressure to modernize faster than their systems were built to handle. In its recent report, New Tech, New Partners: Transforming development in the digital era, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) outlines a model for using blockchains as part of a broader effort to modernize public systems. The publication showcases over 40 pilot projects around the world that apply blockchain technology to improve transparency, speed and accountability of public systems. This ranges from payment infrastructure and social safety nets to climate finance and community-level funding mechanisms, enabled by fundraising platforms, wallets and digital certificates. 

The UNDP uses a pipeline model, which creates purpose-built partnerships that bring governments, blockchain startups and local companies together to solve public sector problems. Institutions get an opportunity to test new tools through small, problem-led initiatives and specific use cases. These tools are implemented on a local level and designed to solve specific problems, such as inefficient payment rails for micro-entrepreneurs or regional ESG control.

In its framework, UNDP treats blockchains as a trusted ledger for coordination and verification. The ability of blockchains to support shared records, traceable transactions and rule-based processes across multiple actors makes them a useful tool for governmental systems. UNDP also makes clear that these benefits are conditional. Poor governance, weak privacy protections and flawed technical design can create serious risks, such as defects in smart contracts or Illicit use of payment systems. The report reaches a pragmatic conclusion: Blockchain can be useful, but only when institutional safeguards are built in from the start and the technology is adopted responsibly with robust oversight.

Central to UNDP's approach is a commitment to platform-agnostic ways of working, which ensures that no single provider or protocol creates new dependencies, and that the digital infrastructure being built today remains open, interoperable, and genuinely in service of people and public purpose.

The report showcases how blockchains can be used to make public institutions more efficient and transparent, with examples from more than 40 countries across payments, financial access, identity systems and climate-related programs. Examples include projects such as crypto wallets for informal business payments, the use of eco-credit tokens and more. The cases also show how digital tools can help institutions extend services in developing nations, where trust is limited and infrastructure is fragmented.

Explore the full UNDP report to see the complete framework, lessons and portfolio of use cases.

US lawmakers have launched an investigation into several Wall Street underwriters, including Dominari Securities, whose parent company is linked to the Trump family, over their role in bringing Chinese companies to US stock markets that were later tied to stock manipulation schemes.

On Monday, the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, chaired by Representative John Moolenaar with Rep. Ro Khanna as ranking member, sent letters to three US companies — D. Boral Capital, Dominari Securities and Revere Securities — seeking information about Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) they helped underwrite.

“These scam centers defraud American households through coordinated “ramp-and-dump” stock manipulation schemes involving Chinese shell companies listed on American exchanges, which your firm appears to facilitate,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Chinese companies allegedly used US IPOs to inflate their share prices through coordinated trading and promotion, then dumped shares on retail investors before the stocks crashed. In some cases, dozens of accounts allegedly placed nearly identical buy orders above the IPO price, temporarily pushing valuations higher before insiders sold their stakes.

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Chinese stock schemes drain billions from investors

The lawmakers cited estimates that around $16 billion in US investor wealth has been drained since 2023 through such schemes. They also pointed to FBI data showing a 300% increase in complaints tied to Chinese stock manipulation cases.

The inquiry seeks documentation from the underwriters, including communications, trading records, funding sources and due diligence policies related to Chinese IPOs.

The committee said it is examining whether US financial intermediaries may have inadvertently helped facilitate manipulation schemes tied to Chinese issuers. The firms have been asked to submit the requested documents by Friday.

Related: Trump's Media Company Closes $105M Crypto.com Deal

Dominari draws scrutiny in Chinese stock probe

One of the brokerage firms named in the probe is Dominari, which has ties to the Trump family. Located in New York’s Trump Tower, it is owned by Dominari Holdings, where Eric Trump, son of US President Donald Trump, is the fourth-largest shareholder. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. joined the company’s advisory board in February 2025.

Last year, Dominari helped facilitate fundraising for Thumzup, a public company that adopted a Bitcoin

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