According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has detained two men who took part in “a violent plan to break into a family’s home in the middle of the night to steal bitcoin worth tens of millions of dollars.” They risk a 20-year prison sentence.
A charge of “plan to commit home invasion robbery for tens of millions of dollars in bitcoin” was laid against Dominic Pineda and Shon Morgan in an indictment that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed on Friday.
The two were taken into custody by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday in Virginia.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams detailed:
The defendants participated in a violent plan to break into a family’s home in the middle of the night and force its residents to provide the code to what the defendants believed was tens of millions of dollars in bitcoin currency.
According to the court document, the defendants participated in the plan from May 18 to May 24, 2020, “to break into a home in Irvington, New York and rob its residents of cash and cryptocurrency.”
Around the time of the planned home invasion, bitcoin was trading at about $10,000 per coin. BTC peaked at an all-time high price of $68,892 in November 2021. It has since dropped in value and is currently trading at $20,892. The Justice Department described:
Pineda, 21, of Manassas, Virginia, and Morgan, 21, of Centreville, Virginia, are each charged with conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison.
The Hobbs Act defines robbery as unlawfully taking another person’s property “by means of actual or threatened force.”
