HARTFORD, Conn. — A Florida man pleaded guilty Thursday to the carjacking and kidnapping of a Connecticut couple, in what authorities called a botched ransom plot that may have been linked to a $240 cryptocurrency theft million dollars.
Michael Rivas, 19, of Miami, was one of six men arrested after a series of events in Danbury on August 25. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy in federal court in Hartford. Two other people are expected to make similar pleas in the same court on Friday.
The couple was driving a new Lamborghini SUV when the suspects forced them out of the SUV, assaulted them, put them in a van and tied them up, police said. Witnesses immediately alerted the police. Four of the men were arrested after abandoning their vehicles, including the van, and fleeing on foot, while the other two were later taken into custody at a nearby house the group had rented through Airbnb, authorities said. The couple was injured but survived the ordeal.
Rivas, dressed in a beige prison uniform and with his legs shackled during the hearing, apologized for his actions. He said it was a “stupid” decision to help one of his co-defendants carry out what he called a “vendetta”. He did not specify.
His lawyer, Brian Woolf, said Rivas accepted a co-defendant’s invitation to participate in the plot in hopes of getting a share of the ransom, and he regrets that decision.
The plot was hatched because the suspects “believed the victims’ son had access to significant amounts of digital currency” and planned to demand a ransom from the son that would be paid in digital currency,” according to a federal indictment .
Just a week earlier, at least two thieves stole $240 million worth of goods. Bitcoin in an elaborate Internet and telephone scam, then embarked on an indulgent spending spree on cars, mansions, trips, jewelry and club nights, authorities said.
Publicly, federal prosecutors and agents have not definitively linked the kidnapping to the Bitcoin theft. Authorities declined to comment on possible connections between the two cases, including how the six suspects knew the couple’s son possessed a large amount of digital currency.
But federal agents told Danbury police that the FBI was looking into whether the couple’s son was involved in the Bitcoin theft, Danbury Detective Sgt. Steven Castrovinci told the Associated Press. Neither Danbury police nor federal authorities have named the couple or their son.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross Weingarten declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing.
In mid-September, federal prosecutors announced that the two men, Malone Lam, 20, and Jeandiel Serrano, 21, had been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder instrumentalities. monetary in relation to the cryptocurrency flight.
Court documents indicate unnamed co-conspirators were involved in the scam along with the two men. Their lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Lam, Serrano and the unnamed co-conspirators posed as technical support staff at Google and a cryptocurrency exchange while contacting the theft victim to offer money. to help resolve an alleged security breach.
The victim, from Washington, D.C., believed them and gave them remote access to her computer on August 18. The alleged thieves took more than 4,100 Bitcoins, then valued at more than $240 million, prosecutors said. This amount of Bitcoin is now worth almost $380 million.
According to prosecutors, Serrano, of Los Angeles, admitted during an interview with federal investigators that he used the stolen currency to purchase three automobiles, worth a total of more than $1 million, as well as ‘a $500,000 watch. He also said he had about $20 million in the victim’s currency and agreed to wire the funds to the FBI, authorities said.
Meanwhile, Lam, a Singapore citizen who had addresses in Los Angeles and Miami, Florida, was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a night in Los Angeles nightclubs and buying Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Custom Porsches, prosecutors said. He also rented two mansions in Miami, purchased a watch for $2 million, and owned a Lamborghini Revuelto worth more than $1 million.
Federal prosecutors said in court documents that at least $100 million of the stolen funds remained unaccounted for.
Exactly a week after the cryptocurrency theft, the couple from Danbury, a city of more than 80,000 along the New York border, were forced out of their SUV in their hometown after a The car thieves’ vehicles hit them and two other vehicles. surrounded them. The group attacked the man with a baseball bat and dragged the woman by her hair as they put them in the van, where the couple was tied up with duct tape, police said.
“I am deeply remorseful for my irresponsible behavior,” Rivas told U.S. District Judge Sarala Nagala on Thursday. “I should have known.”
“That’s not what my parents taught me growing up,” he added.
Rivas and the five other men also face kidnapping and assault charges in Connecticut state court. The other men are also from Florida.
Sentencing was set for May 13. The prosecution and defense agreed to sentencing guidelines that call for approximately 11 to 14 years in prison.
