- Florida teens charged with kidnapping and stealing $4M in cryptocurrency and NFTs.
- One suspect flees the country while two others face trial for the Las Vegas abduction.
- Teens force the victim to reveal passwords after demanding bank access.
Three teenagers from Florida have been charged in a shocking case involving kidnapping and cryptocurrency theft. The two teens have been charged with forcibly kidnapping a man and moving him to an isolated desert location before stealing $4 million worth of cryptocurrency and digital assets. The reason why the investigation has drawn much attention throughout the country is that a huge amount was robbed and those who were accused were young.
One Suspect Flees the Country in Teen NFT Extortion Case
This, as reported, has formally charged Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, 16 year olds residing in Pasco County, Florida, with serious criminal acts. The alleged offenses are robbery, kidnapping and extortion. Three persons are involved with the event and his identity has been kept private. Because of a ruling by a juvenile judge in court, Ashraf and Fletcher have been categorized as adults and have now become targets of the trials in juvenile court.
Moreover, one of the suspects has left the United States. A prosecutor verified a court hearing for Fletcher about this. Apart from cryptocurrency, the suspects were reported to have targeted valuable non-fungible tokens (NFTs), tradeable digital assets.
The incident happened last November. That night, the victim was hosting a gather of some sort of cryptocurrency in the Downtown Las Vegas joint. After departing the event he went to his apartment complex and left his car in the apartment’s parking lot. At this moment three teenagers approached him. They forced him under threat of gun into the back seat of their car.
The suspects then went ahead and dished out terrifying warnings. According to police records, the suspects had told the victim that he would only survive if he followed their instructions. They threatened to hurt his father if he did not go in their direction.
Florida Teens Kidnap Victim, Force Bank Access, and Abandon in Desert
While driving, the teens demanded the victim’s passwords. They demanded that he open his bank accounts to them as well. At the time, someone else was purportedly on speakerphone and giving directions to the suspects. Police have not yet identified this guy, but they believe him to be someone involved in the abduction.
Sometime later, the teenagers moved the victim over into Arizona across the Nevada border. They left him behind in White Hills, a barren desert sublocation more than 120 Km from Las Vegas. The victim had survived a five-mile difficult passage through the desert before reaching a gas station after being abandoned. He called a friend who drove to pick him up.
Post the event, authorities started investigating and pursuing the suspects. Police found a vehicle which they assumed had come from Florida through Nevada, including a stop at the victim’s apartment. The teen’s family member had a firearm in Mississippi revealed by the police. The weapon appeared in pictures posted on different social media sites.
Moreover, law enforcement linked the teens to various destructive events that took place in their high school in Florida. From previous events, it was eminently clear to us that they had been disruptive, such as shouting in English and Arabic and physically assaulting school personnel.
Fletcher’s lawyer raised the issue of house arrest during a Friday court appearance. But Las Vegas judge Daniel Westmeyer rejected the request. He put up $4 million as a burden of breath on any party to the above indulgence, clearly citing the gravity of the crime.
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