She refused to surrender her password, and was, in line with the prosecutors’ description, so demoralized by the sooner hacking theft of nearly all of her funds that she advised the lads to easily shoot her. As a substitute, they stole her engagement ring, two iPhones, a laptop computer, the charger for the neurostimulator utilized by the opposite member of the family as a remedy for Parkinson’s illness, and no matter money they might discover, then left.
For his or her subsequent sufferer, the prosecutors describe how the group focused a person who Seemungal knew to be a fellow SIM swapping hacker and who he believed had the truth is robbed him of a big sum of cryptocurrency in 2021. To arrange for that theft in September of 2022, they started repeatedly sending their goal pizza deliveries within the hope of conditioning him to return to his door with out suspicion. When the second of their deliberate theft got here, nevertheless, their goal wasn’t residence, in order that they as a substitute lay in wait, then drew weapons on their goal when he arrived on the home.
Over the subsequent hour, the group certain their sufferer’s palms behind his again with bootlaces and demanded he hand over entry to his crypto accounts. When the account he gave them entry to had solely a small sum of crypto, they put him within the backseat of their rented Cadillac, struck his face with their weapons, drove away, and commenced extorting his buddies and father for crypto funds. Finally, about 120 miles from their sufferer’s residence, the lads took their sufferer out of the automobile and advised him to kneel. He as a substitute escaped, as one of many males fired a gun from the shifting automobile, although it is not clear if the shot was meant to hit the sufferer or merely scare him. One of many group—who has not but been charged—would later say that St. Felix had instructed they kill their captive.
A number of months later, prosecutors write, the group carried out their subsequent assault in opposition to one other sufferer they believed to be a rich crypto-focused hacker, this time in Texas. On a street journey from Florida to start out surveilling their goal, St. Felix had fled from regulation enforcement in Louisiana, flipped his automobile at greater than 90 miles per hour, and damaged his leg. The opposite members of the Florida crew had been arrested after that crash. So the break-in was carried out by a newly recruited group based mostly within the Houston space.
Just some days earlier than Christmas of 2022, the Texas group broke into their goal’s residence, certain his members of the family’ palms with zip ties, and repeatedly hit him within the face demanding he give them entry to his cryptocurrency. Prosecutors say they shoved knives and forks below his mom’s fingernails and struck her within the face with a gun. They burned their goal’s arm with a scorching iron to coerce him handy over his crypto account particulars, and at one level tried to punch him within the genitals.
The sufferer finally advised his torturers that he had buried a tool storing his cryptocurrency within the yard. (Actually, that {hardware} pockets, holding $1.4 million in crypto, was in a shifting field within the residence that the thieves by no means discovered.) When the thieves introduced their sufferer to the yard to find the machine, he climbed a fence and escaped. The burglars stole $150,000 in money in addition to some jewellery, then left.
One Ultimate Job
In early 2023, after these comparatively unsuccessful makes an attempt at extortion, an affiliate of Seemungal’s allegedly started feeding the group ideas, hacking into potential targets’ e mail to see the scale of their crypto holdings, and sending these results in the house invasion crew. One Telegram chat obtained by prosecutors exhibits a dialogue of potential targets, together with somebody with $1.2 million in Texas and one other individual with $600,000 in Tennessee.
