The founder of a French cryptocurrency company and his wife were freed this week in France after being brutally kidnapped and held for ransom, authorities said Thursday.

David Balland, founder Ledgera company that sells physical storage devices crypto assetshe was abducted along with his wife early Tuesday from their home in Vierzon, a city in central France, according to a Paris prosecutor. The couple was taken away in a car, then separated and detained at different locations, the prosecutor said.

The abduction sparked a massive investigation involving more than 230 police officers trying to locate the couple. They were eventually freed without a shot being fired, authorities said at a news conference in Paris on Thursday night.

“This was an extremely complex case,” said General Ghislain Réty, head of the elite unit specializing in hostage rescue that freed the couple.

The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said the hijackers contacted Ledger’s second founder and demanded a large ransom be paid using cryptocurrencies. She said that investigators are still determining how much they were looking for in total.

The company alerted the gendarmerie, police forces in smaller towns and rural and suburban areas of France. French news outlets aware of the investigation have been asked to refrain from publishing any details so as not to jeopardize the couple’s safety.

Gendarmes quickly located Mr. Balland in Châteauroux, about 30 miles southwest of his home, and freed him on Wednesday. He was hospitalized because of the “mutilation” his captors inflicted on his arm, Ms. Beccuau said.

An official familiar with the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, said the kidnappers sent a picture of Mr. Balland’s mutilated finger to put pressure on the company.

Part of the ransom was paid during negotiations with the kidnappers, Ms. Beccuau said. “Almost all of that cryptocurrency has been tracked, frozen and confiscated,” she said.

On Thursday, using surveillance of some suspects, analysis of phone records and questioning of several people who had already been arrested, investigators located Mr. Balland’s wife in Étampes, about 80 miles north of Vierzon.

Officers found her tied up in the car but otherwise unharmed, Ms. Beccuau said.

A total of nine men and one woman, aged between 20 and 40, have been detained for questioning about the abduction, Ms Beccuau said. She did not identify them or provide details about their involvement, saying only that they are from different cities and have criminal records. They were not known to the police as part of organized crime, she said.

Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger, wrote on social networks On Thursday that he was “deeply relieved”.

“Our top priority has always been to enable the police to do their job and protect the integrity of the investigation,” said Mr. Gautier. “We have respected law enforcement requests to withhold critical details of an ongoing investigation and appreciate the reporters who did the same.”

Ledger, a high-profile start-up valued at more than $1 billion, was founded in 2014 and has since sold more than six million units, according to the company’s website. It has more than 700 employees in Europe, Asia and the United States, the company says.

Éric Larchevêque, another founder of the company and a well-known TV personality who appeared on the jury The French equivalent of “Shark Tank“, he expressed “enormous relief and deep joy” on social networks after the release of Mr. Balland and his wife.

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of kidnapping and holding someone against his or her will as part of an organized gang in order to get something in exchange; acts of torture; and armed extortion. Those crimes can lead to life in prison, Ms. Beccuau said.

The case repeated a similar case French media reports this month in which a man and his family were held hostage by a group that wanted to blackmail his son, a cryptocurrency influencer living in Dubai. They were released, but no one was arrested in that case, according to newspaper reports.

At this stage, investigators have not established any links between the two cases, Ms Beccuau said.