![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774352181_478_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nDaniel landed in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and a hard drive containing $350,000 in bitcoin. <\/p>\n
The 17-year-old\u2019s lifestyle was intended to draw attention: Parties at the hottest clubs. Rented sports cars. Cuban link chains. Imitation Richard Mille watches. <\/p>\n
California is full of young people who were transformed into millionaires when crypto went mainstream. But Daniel didn\u2019t just buy digital money when it was cheap and watch it skyrocket in value. He stole it.<\/p>\n
The teenager \u2014 who was identified only by his first name when he testified as a cooperating witness at a recent trial \u2014 was part of something called \u201cthe comm,\u201d which federal authorities say was a loose network of con artists who treated defrauding investors of millions of dollars like a game. <\/p>\n
Holed up in lavish rental homes in Encino and Malibu, they hatched schemes to trick people into giving up access to crypto accounts with nine-figure balances. They gleefully screen-recorded some of the heists, prosecutors wrote in court documents charging them with racketeering, fraud and money laundering.<\/p>\n
For Daniel, a rail-thin teenager with a wispy goatee and thick black hair, the fun was not necessarily spending the stolen funds on cars, cocaine, jewelry and his 23-year-old girlfriend, but flaunting his lifestyle on social media. <\/p>\n
It got him noticed by the wrong people.<\/p>\n
Daniel was the star witness of a trial in February and March that revealed a subculture revolving around newly created crypto wealth. There are \u201ccrypto kids\u201d \u2014 some scammers like Daniel, others who acquired their riches legitimately. There are fixers who set up them up with homes, cars, clothes and other luxuries. <\/p>\n
And then there are those who preyed on the crypto kids. When masked, armed men forced their way into Daniel\u2019s apartment in 2024, they identified themselves as police officers.<\/p>\n
One of them had worked for the Los Angeles Police Department, but he wasn\u2019t on the job when he came for Daniel.<\/p>\n
According to one witness, the former officer justified taking the teenager\u2019s crypto at gunpoint, calling it \u201cstealing something from somebody who stole.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Ghost\u2019 and the illicit crypto economy<\/p>\n
On the witness stand, Daniel didn\u2019t say where he grew up. He spoke English without the trace of an accent and said he\u2019s also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. A detective testified the teenager showed him a passport that said he was born in Rio de Janeiro, but he acknowledged the document could have been fake. <\/p>\n
Daniel said he met members of the comm through the encrypted messaging app Telegram. As he described it, they were not hackers. They stole fortunes through deceit, working in concert to impersonate employees from well-known crypto exchanges.<\/p>\n
Daniel testified he called people with accounts on Coinbase and other platforms, pretending to be a customer service representative. After tricking investors into handing over login access, he transferred bitcoin and other currencies into \u201chardware wallets\u201d beyond the reach of law enforcement, Daniel said. <\/p>\n
In one of the most brazen heists attributed to the comm, Malone Lam, a 20-year-old Singaporean national who was then living in Los Angeles, allegedly stole $248 million in 2024. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Malone Lam has pleaded not guilty to racketeering, fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors allege the Sinagaporean national stole nearly $250 million from a bitcoin investor. <\/p>\n
(U.S. District Court, District of Columbia)<\/p>\n
While staying at a rented Encino mansion, prosecutors say, Lam plotted with several accomplices to trick an investor from Washington, D.C., into thinking he was being hacked. After Lam\u2019s accomplices purposely used incorrect credentials to access the man\u2019s Google account, the investor got a security alert, Jonathan Stratton, an assistant U.S. attorney, said at Lam\u2019s bail hearing. <\/p>\n
Lam has pleaded not guilty to charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering. <\/p>\n
According to Stratton, Lam, posing as a Google representative, called the investor and convinced the man to give up his password and security codes to prevent what Lam described as a hacking attempt. Lam allegedly saw the man had an account with Gemini, a crypto brokerage, and an accomplice posing as a Gemini representative then called the investor. <\/p>\n
Convinced his Gemini account had been compromised, the man agreed to download what he thought was a security program. In fact, it was a remote desktop application that enabled Lam and his conspirators to transfer 4,000 bitcoins to themselves, Stratton said. If Lam had tried to carry off that amount of money in $100 bills, the prosecutor said, it would have weighed more than 2\u00bd tons. <\/p>\n
Afterward, Lam embarked on \u201cwhat only can be described as an outrageous and exorbitant spending spree,\u201d Stratton said. According to the prosecutor, Lam spent $569,525 in one night at an unnamed L.A. nightclub, and he became \u201cnotorious\u201d for throwing Hermes bags worth tens of thousands of dollars into crowds of partygoers. <\/p>\n
On Telegram, Lam was known as $$$, King Greavys and Anne Hathaway. <\/p>\n
Daniel was known as Scare. Testifying in a downtown L.A. courtroom, Daniel, dressed in a charcoal suit, white dress shirt buttoned to the throat and Louis Vuitton belt, said someone else had already claimed the Scare handle on Instagram, so he bought it from them for $16,000. He posted photographs that showed off trappings of luxury without ever revealing his face. <\/p>\n
One depicted a Louis Vuitton bag with the caption: \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a cheater lose so why would I play fair?\u201d<\/p>\n
When he arrived in L.A. in November 2024, Daniel had no credit history and couldn\u2019t rent an apartment in his own name. He said that through a nightlife promoter, he was introduced to Pierre Louis, a fixer who specialized in getting rich people what they wanted. <\/p>\n
Louis, 27, testified he grew up in Montreal. In a thick Quebecois accent, he said he set up rappers, athletes and other wealthy clients with rented cars, homes, jewelry and clothes. Although he catered to rich people and hung out in posh nightclubs on the Westside, Louis said he made only about $50,000 a year and lived in an apartment in Burbank. <\/p>\n
When he first met Daniel, Louis testified the teenager tried to scam him by offering to help with his crypto investments. That didn\u2019t put off Louis, who rented Daniel a high-rise apartment on Wilshire Boulevard. The teenager sent him $60,000 in bitcoin for six months\u2019 rent. <\/p>\n
Louis offered another service: a way to launder stolen crypto. Unable to use legitimate exchanges, Daniel testified he converted some by trading it for gold with a downtown L.A. jeweler. He also relied on Louis to connect him with people willing to pay cash for bitcoin without asking questions. <\/p>\n
![\"Buildings,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774352182_594_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A teenager testified he laundered stolen crypto through buying gold in the downtown L.A.\u2019s Jewelry District.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Through mutual friends in the luxury car rental business, Louis said, he had met a man called Ghost who had a network of crypto buyers. Louis testified that he sent Ghost funds he\u2019d received from Daniel and other crypto kids, and Ghost brought him cash. Both Louis and Ghost charged their clients fees of 2% to 5%, the rate varying depending on who was involved, Louis said. <\/p>\n
After meeting Ghost, Louis said, he usually brought the cash to a car rental business in Van Nuys called Drive-LA to use its electric money counter. The company, which owned a fleet of Lamborghinis, Porsches and Bentleys, was run by a former officer who aspired to be more than just a patrol cop. <\/p>\n
Lamborghinis and \u2018$5 wrench attacks\u2019<\/p>\n
Eric Halem created Drive-LA in 2021 as a side gig to his day job patrolling the San Fernando Valley for the LAPD. <\/p>\n
The business, which also offered customers access to jets, homes and chauffeurs, gained a loyal following among local rappers and social media influencers. During an internal affairs interview, Halem said that he raked in about $1 million a year in profit from Drive-LA, according to a department source who requested anonymity in order to discuss personnel matters. He claimed in online interviews that he had interests from venture capitalists and was looking to expand.<\/p>\n
A 13-year veteran of the LAPD, Halem quit the force in 2022 but was still working as a reserve officer when he met Louis, who testified he brokered hundreds of car leases for Drive-LA. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774352183_297_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A former LAPD officer, Eric Halem, owned a car rental business called Drive-LA in this business center in Van Nuys.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Louis said he was at Drive-LA counting cash he\u2019d received from Ghost when Halem asked where the money came from. <\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the crypto kids,\u201d Louis replied. <\/p>\n
Halem was curious how they were so rich. \u201cI told him they basically scam or steal people\u2019s crypto,\u201d Louis recalled during his testimony.<\/p>\n
Through Halem, Louis said, he was introduced to Gabby Ben. Twice convicted of fraud, Ben, 51, has ties to Israeli organized crime circles, a prosecutor said at his bail hearing in November. <\/p>\n
Louis brokered the sale of Amiri clothes and Hermes bags from Lam to Ben, who bought the luxuries on credit and never paid him, Louis testified. <\/p>\n
At Ben\u2019s rented mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Louis said, he spitballed with Ben and Halem ideas on how to rob crypto kids. Louis recalled Halem saying they were criminals who wouldn\u2019t report being robbed to the police. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically like stealing something from somebody who stole,\u201d Halem said, according to Louis. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s increasingly common for criminals to use physical force to extract crypto from a victim, said Marilyne Ordekian, a lecturer of security and crime science at University College London who co-wrote a paper on the trend. <\/p>\n
The heists are called \u201c$5 wrench attacks\u201d after a comic strip in which a robber bypasses a laptop\u2019s encryption protections by threatening the user with a wrench. A perpetrator who may lack the technical expertise to hack into a crypto wallet can resort to cruder methods, Ordekian said. <\/p>\n
According to authorities, the tools Halem, Ben and Louis planned to use included police uniforms, handcuffs and a gun. <\/p>\n
Masked men, handcuffs and a setup<\/p>\n
The plot came together two days after Christmas in 2024, Louis testified.<\/p>\n
Daniel had sent Louis $23,000 in crypto to convert to cash. Louis said the plan was for him to call Daniel down to the parking garage from his 18th-floor apartment, hand over the money and stall while the others entered the apartment using the door code that Louis had provided. <\/p>\n
Louis, Halem, Ben and three others set out from Ben\u2019s house around 2 a.m., driving to Koreatown in a green Range River and orange Lamborghini Urus, Louis testified. Both cars were owned by Drive-LA, Louis said. <\/p>\n
Louis texted Daniel when he arrived. Ben had given Louis $7,000 in cash for the transaction. When Daniel got in Louis\u2019 Range Rover, he testified, he gave the teenager $6,000 \u2014 pocketing $1,000. Louis said he \u201cdapped him up\u201d and told him he\u2019d see him soon. <\/p>\n
In Daniel\u2019s telling, he was counting the money in Louis\u2019 car when he got a text from his girlfriend that read, \u201cHelp me.\u201d <\/p>\n
His girlfriend \u2014 identified in court only by her first name, Victoria \u2014 testified she was in the bedroom alone when she heard the sound of someone entering the incorrect code to the front door. She looked through the pinhole and saw two men wearing hoods. <\/p>\n
She testified that she fled to a closet and was hiding there when she heard the sound of the code being entered again \u2014 this time correctly. Through the crack under the closet door, she said, she saw feet traipsing through the bedroom and heard men whispering in a foreign language. <\/p>\n
The feet approached the closet door. Then it was thrown open. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m greeted by four masked men,\u201d Victoria testified. \u201cOne of them is holding a gun. I have my hands up. I\u2019m saying, \u2018I\u2019ll give you what you want. I\u2019ll give you the safe. Just please don\u2019t kill me.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
The men said they were LAPD officers serving a search warrant. <\/p>\n
\u201cExit the closet,\u201d one said. <\/p>\n
They cuffed her wrists and demanded to know where her boyfriend was, she testified. Then she heard the sound of Daniel opening the front door. <\/p>\n
Daniel said he was \u201cabsolutely terrified\u201d to see men wearing black clothes, police vests and black masks that covered everything but their eyes inside his apartment. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nothing running through my mind other than fear,\u201d he recalled. <\/p>\n
The men slammed him against a wall, snapped handcuffs onto his wrists and pushed him into the spare bedroom he used as an office. The intruders told him to turn on his computer and transfer crypto out of his wallet. Trying to trick them, he showed them a wallet that contained only a little money. <\/p>\n
Daniel testified one of the men threatened to shoot him in the foot, asking another intruder for a gun. Daniel told them the combination to a safe where he stored his hardware wallet, which was about the size of a USB drive. <\/p>\n
Daniel testified he was being detained in a bathroom with the shower running when one of the intruders burst in and said something in a foreign language. The intruders fled the apartment, leaving Daniel and his girlfriend in cuffs. <\/p>\n
A forgotten code and a missing fortune<\/p>\n
Louis testified he was responsible for cutting the robbery short. After Daniel left his car, he circled the block a few times, then pulled over, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI started to feel guilty about what was going on,\u201d Louis testified. \u201cHe didn\u2019t do nothing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louis had spent a few hours earlier that night drinking at Poppy on La Cienega Boulevard. He said he felt compelled to text his accomplices inside Daniel\u2019s apartment that the police were on the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was the alcohol mixed with my feelings,\u201d Louis said. He thought about how Daniel, like himself, was \u201cjust a person trying to make it big.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that night, Louis said, he and his bodyguard returned to Koreatown to check on Daniel \u2014 and retrieve the cuffs his accomplices had left behind. <\/p>\n
Louis said he found Daniel and his girlfriend hiding in a safe room in the apartment. She was still handcuffed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to find who did this,\u201d Louis recalled Daniel saying.<\/p>\n
Louis testified he felt guilty about setting up Daniel, but he wasn\u2019t above pestering Halem and Ben for a cut of the profits. Both tried putting him off by claiming they hadn\u2019t stolen anything, Louis testified. <\/p>\n
Halem called the whole thing a \u201cmajor waste of time,\u201d Louis said. Yet Ben went on a \u201cnice little shopping spree\u201d with his girlfriend, Louis testified, while Halem bought two Porsche 911 GTs and a Rolex Yacht Master watch. <\/p>\n
When Louis confronted Ben at his house, Louis said, an associate he knew by the nickname Lucky brandished a gun and warned \u201cnot to mess with them.\u201d Louis testified that Ben said he was from the \u201cIsraeli mafia\u201d and knew people \u201ceverywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ben has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, robbery and fraud. At a bail hearing, his lawyer said Ben owned legitimate healthcare and assisted living facilities. <\/p>\n
Louis was arrested five months after the robbery. In a jail call, Halem told him to \u201chang tight\u201d and said he knew an FBI agent who could get him out of jail, according to Louis.<\/p>\n
No one from the FBI ever came to see to him, Louis said, and Halem was arrested three months later. <\/p>\n
Halem was convicted this month of robbery and kidnapping. He has maintained his innocence but faces a possible life sentence.<\/p>\n
Louis was charged with robbing Daniel, and he agreed to testify against Halem in hopes of getting out of prison early. He has yet to be sentenced. <\/p>\n
The LAPD never determined what happened to the crypto on Daniel\u2019s hard drive. <\/p>\n
Daniel testified he might have been able to access his wallet remotely using a \u201cseed phrase,\u201d a unique string of words that he wrote down on a piece of paper. But the men who robbed him took it from his safe, he said, and he can\u2019t remember the phrase. <\/p>\n
Now 18, Daniel testified he doesn\u2019t want the crypto back, although he still tracks the price of bitcoin on his phone\u2019s home screen. <\/p>\n
\u201cI see it every day,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel landed in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and a hard drive containing $350,000 in bitcoin. The 17-year-old\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":678224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[9097,166647,1582,276,6362,285606,4834,79643,285605,55026,10067,2961,224,5337,285604,6291,3546,285603,6617,3983],"class_list":["post-678223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-apartment","tag-armed-man","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-crypto","tag-crypto-kid","tag-daniel","tag-eric-halem","tag-gabby-ben","tag-ghost","tag-investor","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-malone-lam","tag-other","tag-people","tag-pierre-louis","tag-prosecutor","tag-teenager"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116283951684802438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}