A 24-year-old Florida man was convicted of masterminding a cryptocurrency theft scam that also included kidnapping and assault.
In a new press release, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says Remy St. Felix of West Palm Beach was the mastermind behind a ring of robberies that targeted cryptocurrency holders from September 2022 to July 2023 in multiple states.
According to the Department of Justice, Saint Felix and his crew broke into homes, kidnapped victims and forced them to access and then empty their cryptocurrency wallets. To do this, Saint Felix and his accomplices hacked into the email accounts of their victims and conducted preliminary physical surveillance.
Then, after stealing the funds, they laundered them using privacy-enhanced digital assets such as Monero (XMR), decentralized exchange platforms (DEX) without know-your-customer (KYC) rules, and flash exchanges.
According to Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's criminal division,
“Saint Felix and his associates targeted victims throughout the United States, committing violent home invasions, kidnappings, and robberies to steal cryptocurrency.
While participants in this brutal conspiracy attempted to cover their tracks through encrypted communications and anonymous financial transactions, they were not beyond the reach of our dedicated investigators and prosecutors.”
In one case in April 2023, St. Felix and another man broke into someone's home, tied him up, held him at gunpoint, and robbed the victim and her spouse of $150,000 worth of cryptocurrency.
St. Felix was arrested in July 2023 as he was about to commit another home invasion, according to the Department of Justice. He was found guilty of nine counts and faced a minimum of seven years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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