MJP –
Criminals have perfected the art of hacking cryptocurrency owners’ online accounts to steal their DeFi assets. Still, one such gang has, up until very recently, sent actual burglars to the houses of crypto owners to intimidate, assault, and extort their digital money.
The majority of the gang’s members were sentenced last week, according to the Justice Department. In connection with the brutal crimes, Remy Ra St Felix, a 25-year-old ringleader, received a 47-year prison term. The government claimed that for about two years, the gang used a mix of “violent home invasions” and internet SIM switching methods to steal almost $3.5 million from several victims.
A troubling instance occurred when the men stormed into a North Carolina residence and “violently assaulted” the couple residing there.
According to Ars Technica, the men pretended to be construction workers when they first approached the house to check the local piping networks. Once they had checked out the backyard, they forced their way inside and brandished weapons at the couple. Attacked and threatened to sexually assault the man’s wife, the men eventually got him to open his Coinbase account on his computer.
After that, the hackers involved in the scheme accessed the victim’s account with AnyDesk, a remote access program, and started moving all of the victim’s funds into the gang’s accounts. The men managed to withdraw $156,853 from the man’s account before Coinbase blocked their attempts to transfer the funds. The couple proceeded and informed their neighbors about the break-in after the gang members left them with the digital assets.
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The two men who broke into the house were paid $22,267.65 apiece for violently enforcing the arrangement. At the same time, the other gang members who were involved in cybercrime divided up the remaining $112,000.
In addition to Little Elm, Texas, Delray Beach and Homestead, Florida, and Georgia, the men had planned and executed similar house invasions in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Georgia. “The conspirators communicated via an encrypted messaging application to plan their crimes,” the government adds, describing the whole investigation. They planned their crimes by discussing potential victims’ habits, the gear they would need, the ins and outs of cryptocurrencies, and how to break into their homes. Images of their targets and their residences were also disseminated.
The individuals appear to have failed to grasp the ease with which the federal government can track Bitcoin, despite the fact that they employ complex, mafia-style tactics. The government has invested much in cutting-edge technology to track down digital assets on the web in the past few years. Even though this was common knowledge, some of the crooks still didn’t try to hide their tracks.
One of the intruders used a government-issued ID to open a Coinbase account on the same day as the break-in. Even though the plot’s cybercriminals tried to hide their identities by using “anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies” and other seemingly obfuscatory ways, the federal government was able to identify the majority of them.
