Bogus Utility Workers Accused of Draining Zip-Tied Retiree’s Crypto at Gunpoint

A 76-year-old retiree was zip-tied and held hostage in his North Carolina home by a pair of bogus utility workers who traveled from Florida to drain—at gunpoint—the contents of the man’s cryptocurrency account, which the alleged mastermind of the scheme apparently worried would be substantial enough to attract the attention of the FBI.

That’s according to a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday and obtained by The Daily Beast, which charges Jarod Gabriel Seemungal, 22, and Remy Ra St. Felix, 23, with kidnapping and conspiracy over the violent April 12 holdup that netted more than $150,000 in crypto and landed the retiree and his wife in the hospital. During the terrifying home invasion, St. Felix allegedly threatened to lop off the man’s toes and genitals if he didn’t cooperate.

The pair began planning the heist at least six months ago, the feds say.

In late February, Seemungal messaged St. Felix, an aspiring rapper who goes by the name “RemGod,” about wealthy targets they could forcibly relieve of their crypto assets, according to screenshots of the conversation cited in a supporting affidavit.

“[W]e bout start gettin active,” St. Felix allegedly wrote. “We need a few things to kick off the process though… We need one of those license plate magnet [sic] to cover tag. And a uniform for whomevers [sic] knockin.”

“What are we thinkin,” Seemungal replied, the affidavit says. “Doordash? Or… lmk.”

“More den likely doordash…” St. Felix wrote back.

St. Felix, who beat an attempted murder charge in 2018, informed Seemungal that he had the “team ready,” and wanted to “clean up laudy before we take off,” the affidavit states. (“Laudy” appears to be a reference to Fort Lauderdale, about 50 miles south of West Palm Beach, where St. Felix and Seemungal live.)

“I’m tryna hit local n**gas but the thing is with the actual crypto investors and shit, they have so much it’s like retirement licks,” Seemungal messaged St. Felix shortly before Valentine’s Day. “Those will deffo get FBI and other shit involved.” (A footnote in the affidavit, written by an FBI Raleigh-Durham Safe Streets Task Force officer, adds, “Based on my training and experience, I know the term ‘lick’ is slang for ‘robbery.’”)

Seemungal was the “tech savvy” member of the crew, responsible for locating victims, according to the affidavit.

“We’ve got another 800k in Texas,” he told St. Felix in one of the messages. “And 4mil in Canada idk how that would ever work. Dirty funds.”

Seemungal then signed off with a link to Miami NFT Week 2023.

Early on the morning of April 12, a Wednesday, two men wearing reflective vests and khaki pants appeared at a residence in Durham. They told the man who answered the door that they were there “inspecting pipes for damage,” and that they would be walking around the house to look for any problems.

The pair soon knocked again, and this time, the man’s wife answered. She screamed as they pushed past her into the home, and her husband ran downstairs to see what was happening, the affidavit states. Armed with pistols, the two men zip-tied the couple’s hands and dragged the wife into the bathroom, where she was held captive by a third West Palm Beach resident identified in the affidavit as Elmer Ruben Castro, who was carrying a pink revolver, it says.

St. Felix forced the husband, at gunpoint, to log into his Mac and install AnyDesk, which allows computers to be accessed remotely. He then had the husband sign into his Coinbase account, using multi-factor authentication, before Seemungal provided instructions over the phone about how to transfer cryptocurrency from the husband’s Coinbase account, the affidavit continues.

“The husband described [Seemungal] as ‘tech savvy,’” the affidavit states, which notes that he appeared to have previously compromised the man’s email. “[Seemungal] knew details about the account without being told.”

St. Felix, the husband later told police, “threatened to cut off Husband’s toes and genitalia, to shoot him, and to rape his wife,” the affidavit states. “[St. Felix] also struck the husband in the head… He was armed with a black semi-automatic handgun.”

Over 45 minutes, $156,853 worth of crypto was vacuumed out of the homeowner’s Coinbase account, in three separate transactions, according to the affidavit. A fourth transaction, it says, was flagged and denied by Coinbase.

St. Felix and Castro then “destroyed the husband’s iMac and the couple’s phones by smashing them,” the affidavit says. “They put the husband in the bathroom with the wife, threatened them, and then left.”

Eventually, the couple escaped and sought help from a neighbor, who called police.

“You probably could count on a hand how many times recently there have been cases ... of this magnitude involving cryptocurrency,” Durham police Sgt. Jermaine Clark said at the time. (News coverage at the time said $250,000 had been stolen.)

Cops located security video from a nearby home that showed a BMW X5 conducting “what appears to be surveillance” of the couple’s home on each of the three days prior to the robbery, according to the affidavit. Investigators also reviewed Coinbase records, which revealed an account had been opened in Castro’s name just 90 minutes after the robbery and received more than $22,000 in crypto, it states. To open the account, Castro provided Coinbase with an image of the front and back of his driver’s license, his phone number, his email, and his home address, the affidavit states. That afternoon, a Coinbase account was also established in St. Felix’s name with all of his personal info, as well. The next day it, too, received a crypto deposit of more than $22,000. Seemungal already had two Coinbase accounts and received a suspicious deposit six days after the robbery, investigators say.

Investigators followed other digital breadcrumbs the suspects left behind, including messages in which Castro and St. Felix discussed driving to North Carolina in a rental car, and made reservations at a hotel near Duke University. Two days before the robbery, Castro wrote himself a note on his phone containing the Durham retiree’s license plate number. He saved a picture of the pink revolver to his iCloud account, according to the affidavit.

St. Felix, in his Google account, allegedly had a screenshot of the target’s Coinbase balance, a picture of Castro in the rented X5, and a photo of himself in the clothes he wore during the robbery. Castro’s debit card was used to buy a clipboard, a reflective safety vest, sunglasses, and a pair of khaki pants at a Walmart in Durham, and both men were seen on surveillance video purchasing the items, according to the affidavit. Their phones pinged off cell towers near the victims’ home while the robbery was underway, and both devices traveled from South Florida to Durham four days earlier, then back to South Florida immediately following, the affidavit says.

On April 15, according to the affidavit, St. Felix messaged an unknown recipient, asking, “Friday? … Start putin shit in motion for next targ.”

The recipient then brought up the Durham robbery, asking why “y’all had to clear so quick on da previous one.”

In response, St. Felix said there were “def too much activities in the neighborhood,” the affidavit states.

“Where his desk is and… house is setup it’s damn near a glass house,” St. Felix said. “Imagine having 2 old ass people tied up, and any neighbor jogs by (which they were doing) see and call the cops. The landscapers were there at 9:02 we left at 9:02 they were unloading their whip bouta work.”

Arrest warrants were issued for Seemungal and St. Felix on Thursday. If convicted, they each face a maximum of life in prison. A call to Castro’s phone number, which was listed in court filings, elicited a text in response, reading, “Who this?” and a subsequent block upon explaining the reason for the inquiry.

Seemungal and St. Felix did not have lawyers listed in court records on Friday, and The Daily Beast was unable to reach them for comment.

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