In reality, the news got out locally because more than 200 people were on the move, on the ground and in the air, gathering information at the couple’s house, from the neighbours, and so on. By the time the Bourges prosecutor stepped aside after a few hours, local gendarmes were already going through all the available CCTV footage. The arrival of the JIRS made in-depth digital investigations possible.15
The hours dragged on. The situation only moved thanks to a stroke of luck. Just as the Berry Républicain had broken the story, the BAC16 in Bourges stopped a suspicious man in a car. The plates didn’t match: the car was stolen. Opening the boot, the officers found more plates. The man was arrested and taken into police custody.
The connection wasn’t made straight away. But very early the next morning, the police found the infamous video sent to Larchevêque and immediately contacted the gendarmerie leading the investigation, after a detective twigged.
The GPS data led to an address near Châteauroux.
Set a little apart from the centre of Montierchaume, Le Cabaret Paisible, as the villa is called, belongs to a businessman from the Basque Country who bought it a few years ago and handed it over to the conciergerie Galilé, a property-management agency operating mainly in Châteauroux and Vierzon. The agency manages around fifty properties, mostly second homes. Listed on Airbnb, the villa had been rented by Aurélie B., the only woman in the gang (so far), for 5 nights. Then it was occupied on the Monday via an automatic key-box system.
On Wednesday morning, the GIGN got ready to go in. The situation was extremely tense: while the latest information suggested that those holding Balland were not hardened criminals, the overall organisation pointed to violent, well-organised people.
The operation was forceful but freed Balland, then guarded by two men, who were arrested on the spot. Balland was taken to hospital for treatment.
The record of the men’s first, brief questioning suggested they were foot soldiers, not the masterminds. And that they had no idea where Amandine was, which led investigators to believe the gang was particularly well organised, even though those arrested were not known to have links with organised crime or this kind of offence. That same evening, a man was arrested on his way to the villa.
“That’s precisely why we didn’t want the slightest leak. If the man had seen an article, he would never have come back,” says a Paris source.
The failure of the operation (for the kidnappers), and the fact that it was now public, put Amandine, still missing, at serious risk. The prosecutor obviously said nothing about it, but one of the two addresses searched in Vierzon (quai d’Yèvre, then quai du Cher) was photographed in the local press. One is a supposedly abandoned building, the other the official main residence of one of the suspects.
But on Thursday, information from a phone analysis led investigators to Étampes, south of Paris. The GIGN was sent in, and Amandine was finally found bound in a van parked in a town-centre car park. Alive.
Six more people were arrested, already known for links to drug trafficking in the Paris region. But they still did not appear to be the ones who ordered it.
On Thursday evening, the Paris prosecutor’s office held a press conference, by which time the rest of the investigation had been handed to the Junalco17, and thanked in particular the journalists who “were kind enough to keep silent about the facts” out of “concern for the preservation of human life”. At Ledger, too, people finally allowed themselves to speak.
Eric Larchevêque expressed on X his “profound joy” at the release of his “friend and partner David, and his wife”, while Pascal Gauthier shared “the emotion of the members” of Ledger.
Larchevêque also appeared on the morning show of the radio station RTL (Groupe M6) on 29 January. Along with M6, the station had been one of the very first media to break the news.
“He has not been destroyed by this ordeal, which was obviously very difficult. He’s someone who is very kind, very funny, very discreet, who doesn’t show off on social media at all. He’s not someone who splashes his money around despite his success. […] He just wants to live a normal life.”
Larchevêque was also due to speak on La Grande Semaine on M6 on 1 February18.
As for David Balland, he lived up to his reputation as a man with a very sharp sense of humour, updating his personal Instagram account with this bio:
🏆 Kidnapping Awards 2025
🖐️ Fingers: 9/10