Crypto Home Invasion Ringleader St. Felix Sentenced to 47-Years - Longest Sentence for Case Involving Cryptocurrencies

On September 13, 2024, the US Department of Justice announced that a Florida man, Remy Ra St Felix, was sentenced to 47-years in prison for his involvement in a series of home invasion robberies targeting cryptocurrency holders. The sentence, the longest for any case involving the use of cryptocurrencies, was the result of a years-long investigation by federal and state law enforcement investigators.

Over the course of the investigation, law enforcement learned that more than a dozen suspects threatened, assaulted, tortured, or kidnapped 11 victims across 4 states to coerce them to hand over access to cryptocurrency. As journalist Andy Greenberg wrote in an in-depth piece for Wired Magazine, the case is "likely the worst crypto-focused physical extortion crime spree ever in the US."

St. Felix and his co-conspirators stole over $3.5 million through SIM swapping and violent home invasions. The crimes involved holding victims at gunpoint, assaulting them, and binding them with plastic cable ties. St Felix was convicted on June 25, 2024, and in addition to his prison sentence, he was ordered to pay over $524,000 in restitution. The scheme began in late 2020, led initially by co-conspirator Jarod Gabriel Seemungal, who stole cryptocurrency by gaining access to victims' accounts through SIM swapping. In 2022, the group escalated to violent home invasions. In September 2022, they conducted home invasions in Delray Beach and Homestead, Florida, holding victims at gunpoint and, in one case, abducting and beating a man.In December 2022, Seemungal and a Houston-based crew invaded a home in Little Elm, Texas, torturing the occupants and stealing valuables. In April 2023, St Felix and another co-conspirator, Elmer Ruben Castro, invaded a home in Durham, North Carolina, assaulting the couple and stealing over $150,000 in cryptocurrency.

St Felix was arrested in July 2023 in Long Island, New York, before committing another planned home invasion.

Throughout the conspiracy, the group used encrypted messaging to plan their crimes, including further robberies in Florida and Georgia. Seemungal was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay over $4 million in restitution. Castro, who pleaded guilty to kidnapping charges, is scheduled to be sentenced in October 2024. In total, 12 men have been sentenced for their roles in this criminal operation. This case is an example of how law enforcement can successfully use blockchain intelligence to track violent criminals in ways impossible in the physical world.

One of the home invasions, detailed in a criminal complaint filed in the Middle District of North Carolina, involved two defendants who forced, at gunpoint, a Durham, North Carolina, couple to liquidate their Bitcoin account at a U.S. cryptocurrency exchange. 

The two gunmen, with the help of a more tech savvy co-conspirator, forced the husband to log into his account and then they executed three transactions totaling over $156,000 from the exchange to a decentralized exchange. The exchange denied a fourth attempted transfer based on suspicious withdrawal activity. 

While the culprits attempted to obfuscate their transactions, even moving funds through anonymity-enhanced currency Monero, FBI agents and task force officers were able to trace funds on the blockchain through various addresses and assets back to the same compliant U.S. exchange, ultimately using blockchain intelligence and traditional investigative techniques to identify the suspects.

The Investigation 

While the Durham, N.C. police department acquired surveillance video showing the SUV that the gunmen used, both on the day of the robbery and on proceeding days, authorities also worked with the compliant exchange on tracking financial flows.

As you can see below, the initial three outgoing transactions were all within a few minutes of each other, two in ETH and one Bitcoin with funds flowing to a decentralized exchange.

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The perpetrators, as visualized below, then allegedly swapped currencies, conducted several laundering transactions, including through Monero, and moved the funds through the decentralized exchange in order to conceal the flow of funds (U.S. based exchange nodes in red).

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Investigators were able to trace the swapped funds through the decentralized exchange and back to the same U.S. based exchange where the victims had held their funds (U.S. based exchange nodes in red).

The laundered funds allegedly went to four accounts: One account controlled by each gunman and two accounts controlled by the co-conspirator. The investigators were able to work with the team at the exchange to review and scrutinize account controller details. 

According to the complaint, two of the accounts that received funds were opened in the gunmens’ names, using their driver’s licenses, their phone numbers and their home addresses. The other two accounts were previously opened in the co-conspirator’s name using his driver’s license and email addresses.  

Email search warrants revealed pictures of the victim’s driver’s license, his license plate, pictures of guns that would be used in the robbery, discussions among the subjects of the planned robbery, and even a picture of one of the gunmen dressed in the construction uniform disguise he wore during the robbery.

The investigators also obtained cell phone records associated with the phone numbers the subjects used to open the accounts. The cell phone providers confirmed that the subjects were using their cell phones near the location of the robbery on the day of the robbery. 

This case is the result of state, local, federal and private sector cooperation and coordination and an example of how blockchain intelligence, combined with traditional investigative techniques – search warrants, subpoenas, surveillance and other tools – can be used to investigate and solve cases.

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