A masked gang attempts to kidnap the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a fierce struggle, they move empty-handed.
A onlooker in Paris' 11th arrondissement in the east of the French capital captured the explosion of abduction bid in the video.
Police sources said the woman was the daughter of the owner of a cryptocurrency company. She and her husband fought three attackers until the passer rushed towards their aid, and the men fled a van.
The Paris police brigade, which is expected to investigate the attack, is the latest in a series of kidnappings targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.
According to local media reports, the attack occurred at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, when three men jumped out of a white van and tried to kidnap their mother and her children.
The two were described as relatives of the co-founder of the French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, AFP News said.
The husband of the woman who was with her family at the time tried to protect them and repeatedly beat them in the head. The couple yelled as the masked man tried to pull them away.
At one point, she was thought to have grabbed a gun from the attacker and threw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a copy airsoft.
The street was relatively busy at that time, and a group of children were going to the local elementary school.
Initially, passersby seemed too scared, but when locals started to react, three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. When a man drove him away, a man threw a fire extinguisher into the van.
The family underwent minor injuries at the hospital.
A week later, the company was kidnapped in another part of the capital while witch dogs and holding ransoms, after French police rescued the father of a crypto millionaire.
To show the cruelty of the gang involved, the victim was released three days later after the kidnapper cut off one of the fingers.
Several people were arrested.
David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet company Ledger, kidnapped his wife at his home in central France in January.
French media said the victim disappeared when he was rescued from a house in Palaisso, south of Paris.
