A federal judge in Greensboro, North Carolina, recently sentenced 25-year-old Remy Ra St Felix, Jacob Gabriel Seemungal, and ten other accomplices for multiple armed home invasions, assault, and robbery of various households, one of which included cryptocurrency heists by accessing victim's exchange accounts. The trial was held between September 5 and September 12, and the court documents indicated that two were from Palm Beach and others were foreign co-conspirators who stole through the victim's cryptocurrency exchanges.
The U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release announcing the successful judicial process of all twelve conspirators, with St Felix being the head of the group. The total heist from multiple victims was over $3.5 Million. This case is a large operation and hence involved investigation by multiple divisions, including the police department and the FBI in New York, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), and several others.
The method of choosing their victims was nothing short of meticulous planning and sophistication as they identified preferred targets and discussed strategies to commit home invasions. Along with the knowledge about stealing cryptocurrency, they used encrypted messaging apps. With the help of the other two conspirators, Haisel Daily, aged 22, and Ruben Silver, also 22, could finance hotel rooms, rental cars, and firearms. This resulted in many successful home invasions, which left many victims assaulted, tied down, threatened, and even abducted in one of the cases.
In 2022 when, they recruited others and committed violent home invasions between Delray Beach and Homestead, Florida, where the victims were held at gunpoint. In 2023, both Palm Beach residents stole from their victims' cryptocurrency accounts by swapping the SIMs from the victim's phones. The duo was able to hack a couple's email accounts and kept surveillance on their home for multiple days before a violent home invasion. The men assaulted the couple, threatening them with a gun and tying them down using cable ties. Eventually, they could steal cryptocurrencies worth over $150,000, which were transferred through decentralized platforms and 'instant exchanges' using anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies that do not conduct checks on their customers.
One of the cases involved a man who was also abducted and later found 120 miles from his home beaten up by law enforcement officers. Another involved the torture of a Texas-based man and his mother, where they stole about $150,000 in cash with two Rolex watches, a necklace, and a pendant.
The crime spree ended in 2023 when St Felix traveled to Long Island, New York, for a home invasion of a family of five but was arrested by the police.
Swift sentences for a sophisticated crime
Looking at the series of crimes committed over the months by multiple conspirators involving multiple victims, a trial was completed in no more than a week thanks to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina, the prosecutors in this case. The judge has awarded all twelve conspirators prison and restitution sentences.
Seemungal was sentenced to twenty years in prison with five years of supervised release and $4,038,479.39 in restitution to his victims. There is an added sentence of St Felix’s incarceration from June 25, which includes five years of supervised release and another $524,153.39 in restitution. He also pleaded guilty and admitted his role in stealing cryptocurrency and home invasion charges.
For the rest, all but one, whose sentencing is on October 1, have been given multiple-year prison sentences and restitutions between $355,800 and $524,153.
There have been cryptocurrency heists, but seldom don’t get to hear a case in the United States involving assault and home invasion as it usually ranges between cryptojacking and money laundering. Looking at such acts, one may look at other avenues of securing cryptocurrency, including ensuring it is in hardware wallets. It is challenging to ascertain a solution to protect possessions, themselves, and their loved ones from such situations when armed robbery is involved. While there is a remote chance to recover what is stolen, life once lost can never be recovered.
