Man whose parents were kidnapped after $245M Bitcoin theft pleads guilty to charges

A man from Connecticut whose parents were kidnapped after participating in a bitcoin flight of $ 245 million pleaded guilty to accusations of conspiracy of whitening and money laundering and agreed to testify against his co-accusions, according to non-sealed legal documents this week.

Veer Chetal, 19, from Danbury, Connecticut, was one of the three men accused of having stolen 4,100 bitcoins to a victim in Washington, DC, in an online scam drawn up last August. The trio lived large after robbery, spending millions of dollars in cars, jewelry, rental residences and in the nightclub, according to prosecutors.

A week after the flight, Chetal’s parents were attacked and kidnapped briefly in Danbury in a failed rated conspiracy for Chetal, who, according to the attackers, had a large amount of cryptocurrency, the authorities said.

The Chetal criminal affair was not sealed on Monday before the Washington Federal Court, revealing its guilt pleads in November and its cooperation agreement with the federal authorities investigating Bitcoin. He also revealed new allegations according to which he was involved in around 50 similar flights which collected an additional $ 3 million between November 2023 and September 2024.

Another man accused of Bitcoin flight, Malone Lam, was also one of 13 people charged by a great federal jury in May in an alleged online racketeering conspiracy involving cryptocurrency flights across the United States and abroad which brought back more than $ 260 million, including the Bitcoin therco of $ 245 million.

Chetal faces 19 to 24 years in prison, a fine between $ 50,000 and $ 500,000 and a return to the victim who has not yet been determined, according to federal sentence directives and his advocacy agreement.

His lawyer, David Weinstein, refused to comment, saying that the case of Chetal is still pending.

In September, the federal agents with a search warrant made a descent into Chetal’s apartment in Brunswick, New Jersey, and the home of his parents in Danbury in connection with Bitcoin of $ 245 million. Authorities said they had found more than $ 500,000 in cash, jewelry and expensive watches and high -end clothes. Federal agents also said that Chetal had $ 39 million in cryptocurrency he had given to the investigators.

The authorities said that Chetal, Lam and Jeandiel Serrano were involved in online “social engineering” attacks against cryptocurrency holders. Lam would send alerts victims of unauthorized attempts to access their crypto accounts, while the others would call the victims to pretend to be well -known companies like Google and Yahoo and have access to their accounts, the authorities said.

Friday, messages requesting comments were left with the lawyers of LAM and Serrano.

A week after the flight, six Florida men were accused of having removed the parents of Chetal in broad daylight in Danbury. One of them crushed a car in the parents’ Lamborghini, while others stopped in a van, police said. The attackers forced the couple to leave their vehicle, beat them, put them in the van and attached them, the police said.

The plot was thwarted and the attackers were arrested quickly because there were eyewitnesses who immediately called the police, and an FBI agent on leave led at the time of the removal, the authorities said. The federal agents said that a seventh man who had been arrested later in the context of the abduction had already made a dispute with Chetal which became physical in a Miami nightclub.

The attack on the couple is part of a growing trend in the world in thieves using violence to steal cryptocurrency.

Chetal, who frequented Rutgers University in New Jersey at the time of 245 million dollars and retired later, was born in India and came to the United States with his family at the age of 4 in 2010, according to court documents. His father obtained a visa from a foreign worker and his wife and his children obtained related dependent visas.

Federal authorities have said that Chetal could face the expulsion following the criminal affair.

The authorities say that Chetal’s father lost his job at Morgan Stanley due to the kidnapping and bond of his son with him.

Chetal was initially released from the federal guard of his own commitment. But a judge ordered him detained until the trial earlier this year after the federal prosecutors said he discovered that Chetal had been involved in another cryptographic flight worth $ 2 million in October which he had not told them, after starting to cooperate with the federal authorities.