Just read this wild case from the DOJ website and honestly it's pretty insane. A 25-year-old guy from West Palm Beach led this whole crew of 12 people doing home invasion robberies specifically targeting crypto holders. They stole over 3.5 million in crypto by doing SIM card swaps and violent break-ins. Like actually tying people up with plastic cables, pointing guns at them, beating them until they gave up their crypto account access. Then they'd launder the money through DeFi platforms.

The thing that got me is how organized it was. Apparently Jarod Gabriel Seemungal from the same area started planning these heists back in late 2020 and recruited others including this St Felix guy. By September 2022 they were already running a whole series of these robberies in Florida. They'd study the targets, figure out how to break in, what tools they needed, even studied crypto tech to make sure they could actually steal and move the funds.

So St Felix ended up as the main guy running everything and got 47 years. Jarod Gabriel Seemungal got 20 years, and the rest of the crew got between 5 to 20 depending on their role. This is actually a pretty good reminder that these kinds of targeted attacks on crypto holders are very real. Makes you think about how much you share about your holdings online.