A Florida man was sentenced to 47 years in prison last Wednesday for orchestrating a series of home violent invasions targeting owners of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, stealing $3.5 million through brute force and SIM-swapping attacks alongside 13 other co-conspirators.
Remy St Felix, 24, was the leader of a home invasion crew that held victims at gunpoint in Delray Beach and Homestead, Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). St Felix’s victims were assaulted and bound with plastic zip ties before being forced to send digital assets to wallets controlled by the criminal organization, authorities said.
Felix’s sentencing follows his conviction in late June. He was found guilty on nine counts, including conspiracy, kidnapping, Hobbs Act robbery, wire fraud, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of crimes of violence.
St Felix faced a minimum sentence of seven years, with charges carrying a potential life sentence. The court ordered him to pay $524,000 in restitution, representing the value of cryptocurrency and other assets stolen over the course of his scheme.
The crew’s victims were targeted across broad swaths of the United States, ranging from Texas to New York and North Carolina. Law enforcement said that the crew also leveraged decentralized finance tools to launder the proceeds from their crimes.
The robberies took place between September 2022 and July 2023. But the scheme came to an end when St Felix was arrested on his way to New York with two firearms and plastic zip ties, authorities said.
The organization’s criminal activity wasn’t limited to acts of physical violence. Obtaining access to victims’ accounts on crypto exchanges using their phone numbers, the crew stole digital assets through a tactic known as SIM-swapping, according to law officials.
In a press release, the DOJ recalled one instance in which a Florida victim was abducted from his home, taken 120 miles away, and beaten while being held hostage. In a separate robbery, a victim's family members were restrained for three hours in Texas before crew members made off with $150,000 in cash and luxury watches.
A co-conspirator of St Felix, Jarod Gabriel Seemungal, 23, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement. Authorities said that Seemigul provided members of the crew with firearms, rental cars and hotel rooms. The court ordered him to pay $4 million in restitution.
While the case was spearheaded by the FBI’s field office in Charlotte, North Carolina, agents in New York, Miami, and Houston assisted with the case, among other members of law enforcement.
Prison sentences for other co-conspirators have ranged from 12 to 25 years. Two co-conspirators, who pleaded guilty to respective roles in a kidnapping conspiracy, are scheduled to be sentenced October 1.
Edited by Andrew Hayward