12 Sentenced In Home Invasion Robberies To Steal Cryptocurrency: DOJ

FLORIDA — A 25-year-old Florida man is the latest person sentenced in a series of violent home invasion robberies to steal cryptocurrency, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

Between Sept. 5 and 12, 12 men have been sentenced in the robberies.

Remy Ra St Felix of West Palm Beach, who was convicted June 25 by a federal jury in North Carolina, was handed a 47-year prison sentence for his role in the scheme, the DOJ said.

He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and ordered to pay about $524,000 in restitution.

St Felix and his co-conspirators stole more than $3.5 million from their victim through SIM swapping and home invasions where they held their victims at gunpoint, assaulted them, and bound them with plastic cable ties, the DOJ said.

The scheme started in late 2020, when St Felix’s co-conspirator, Jarod Gabriel Seemungal, 23, of West Palm Beach and unnamed foreign co-conspirators stole cryptocurrency from victims’ accounts at exchanges.

They obtained access to the accounts by taking control of the victims’ phone numbers through SIM swapping, DOJ said.

In 2022, Seemungal and others came up with the home invasion scheme and recruited St Felix and others to assist with the break-ins. St Felix later became the leader of the home invasion crew, according to the department.

St Felix and members of the crew committed violent home invasions in Delray Beach and Homestead in September 2022. In Delray Beach, the victims were held at gunpoint in their home.

In Homestead, a man and his family were held at gunpoint in their home, and then the man was abducted, held hostage, and beaten, before he was found by law enforcement 120 miles from where he lived.

Later in 2022, St Felix and his crew targeted a Little Elm, Texas, man and made several trips to attempt the robbery. In December 2022, Seemungal and a Houston-based crew comprised of Deangelo Lee Contreras, 21; Tristian Rene Gamez, 21; Victor Gonzalez, 27; Jesus Salazar, 24; Cristian Valdez, 21; and Jesus Gerardo Valdez, Jr., 27, all of Houston committed the home invasion.

The Little Elm man and members of his family were held at gunpoint and restrained in their home for more than three hours. During this time, members of the crew tortured the man and his mother. They stole about $150,000.00 in cash, two Rolex watches, and a “valuable” necklace and pendant, the DOJ said.

In April 2023, St Felix and Elmer Ruben Castro, 23, of West Palm Beach, invaded the home of a wife and a husband in Durham, North Carolina. Prior to the invasion, St Felix’s co-conspirators were able to access the couple’s email account and conducted multiple days of surveillance on their home.

During the invasion, the men violently assaulted the couple, threatened them with guns and restrained them with plastic cable ties. They forced the man to provide access to his computer and cryptocurrency exchange account. Seemungal then remotely accessed the computer and stole more than $150,000.00 worth of cryptocurrency.

The conspirators “laundered the funds through anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies, as well as ‘instant exchanges’ and decentralized finance platforms that did not conduct know-your-customer checks,” the department said.

Then, St. Felix traveled from Florida to Long Island, New York, to commit a home invasion of a family of five in July 2023. Before St Felix could do so, however, he was arrested. At the time of his arrest, St Felix was in possession of two guns and plastic cable ties.

The group used an encrypted messaging app to plan their crimes. They used the app to identify targets, discuss how to gain entry to homes, and plan the tools required to carry out the crimes, the technical aspects of cryptocurrency, and the patterns of life of their targets, the DOJ said. They also shared pictures of their targets and the victims’ homes.

Additional home invasions were also planned in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, as well as Georgia.
Seemungal and the foreign co-conspirators financed the purchase of rental cars, hotel rooms and firearms by co-conspirators Haisel Daily, 22, of West Palm Beach and Ruben Matias Nicolopulos Silva, 22, of Lake Worth to use during the robberies.

Seemungal was also sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release and ordered to pay about $4 million in restitution. He pleaded guilty Dec. 19.

Others involved in the scheme were sentenced earlier this month.

Castro, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping on Feb. 6, will be sentenced on Oct. 1.