Cryptocurrency Theft – What To Do If You Are Arrested
Most people do not understand how cryptocurrency works, and the ones that do understand it can barely conceal how proud they feel of their rare knowledge. The rest of us know little about cryptocurrency except that people who possess it want to think that they are rich, even though their crypto assets are shrouded in mystery, and that cryptocurrency is difficult to steal. Cryptocurrency does a good enough job of flying under the radar that only people who are in the know would even dare to try to steal it. In fact, the chances of losing access to your own crypto assets because you forgot the secret codes or, in rare instances, because of a glitch, are greater than the chances of someone else stealing them from you. Likewise, criminal investigations into accusations of theft of crypto assets also require great technical expertise. In May 2026, a Miami man was arrested on suspicion of stealing more than $1 million in crypto assets from his employer; the investigation took nearly six years. Here, our Miami white collar crime lawyer explains how an alleged theft in the early days of Bitcoin led to a years-long investigation and the eventual arrest of someone close to the lawful owner of the bitcoins.
It Takes an Insider to Steal Bitcoins From a Trezor Crypto Wallet
Cryptocurrency is unconnected to banks, which is part of its appeal. Therefore, instead of a bank account, you store crypto currencies in digital wallets. One of these types of digital wallets is the Trezor digital wallet. There are only two ways to access the funds in the wallet. One is to possess the Trezor device and to use it to access the crypto currency. The other way is to enter the seed phrase on the relevant websites so that you can access the funds remotely, effectively recreating the digital wallet wherever you are.
As for the value of the cryptocurrency, the value of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies fluctuates, much like stocks do. Therefore, if someone steals cryptocurrency, they can benefit not only from its value at the time of the theft, but also from its increase in value over time.
Miami Man Arrested on Suspicion of Stealing Bitcoins From Former Employer
In 2013, a small business in Miami hired a young man on the strength of his state-of-the-art knowledge of the digital world. The business owner was an early investor in cryptocurrency. He bought Bitcoins early on and stored them in a Trezor digital wallet. The only two people who knew the seed phrase to access the Bitcoins were the business owner and the information technology specialist who had been working for him since 2013.
In 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Small business owners throughout the country were applying for emergency forgivable loans through the Paycheck Protection Program. The only people who felt safe from the economic disruptions of the early days of the pandemic were the ones who owned cryptocurrency. The owner of the Miami business discovered an unpleasant surprise one day in 2020, when he noticed unauthorized transactions where someone had transferred about $1.9 million in cryptocurrency out of his Trezor digital wallet. At that time, the value of one Bitcoin was just over $115,000.
The business owner immediately suspected his tech savvy employee of stealing the Bitcoins, and he fired him as soon as he found out about the theft, but the criminal investigation took much longer. Investigators interviewed the business owner and several other employees who attested to the fact that only the business owner and the information technology specialist knew the seed phrase. The investigators also summoned records from the cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. These records showed that the unauthorized transactions had taken place when the business owner claimed that they had happened, and that someone had used the seed phrase to access the cryptocurrency remotely. Bitstamp also provided the driver’s license of the information technology specialist and a verification video that the information technology specialist had recorded. By the time the information technology specialist was arrested, he was in his 30s. He was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center; at the time that news reports about the case were published, no additional information was available about the case.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for fraudulent cryptocurrency transactions. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.
Source:
local10.com/news/local/2026/05/27/miami-man-accused-of-stealing-nearly-2m-in-bitcoin-from-ex-employer/
