BlockBeats reported that on May 10, three teenagers in Florida were charged with armed kidnapping of a man, taking him to a remote desert area an hour's drive outside Las Vegas, where they stole $4 million worth of cryptocurrency and other digital assets. Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, both 16 years old from Pasco County, along with another teenager, face charges including robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, records show. A juvenile court judge had previously ruled that Ashraf and Fletcher would be treated as adults.
Prosecutors indicated during Fletcher's probable cause hearing on Friday that a third teenager is no longer in the United States. The prosecutors stated that these individuals are accused of stealing $4 million worth of cryptocurrency and NFTs. In November of last year, a man reported to the police that three young individuals had kidnapped him at gunpoint, taking him to a remote desert area and stealing millions of dollars worth of assets from him, according to documents.
That evening, the victim was attending a cryptocurrency-related event at a business in downtown Las Vegas, police said. The victim then returned to his apartment building and parked his car. The three suspects then approached him and forced him into the back seat of their vehicle. The documents state: "(The victim) was told that if he cooperated, he would live to see the next day; if he did not cooperate, they had already taken control of his father and would kill him." "(The victim's) head was covered with a towel, and the suspects warned him not to look at them."
Police stated that these young individuals demanded the victim's passwords and threatened him to gain access to his financial accounts. The victim could also hear through the phone speaker that the suspects seemed to be directly talking to another person on the phone. Police suspect that these three young individuals subsequently took the victim to the Show Low area in Arizona, more than 70 miles from Las Vegas, taking over an hour by car. The victim walked five miles alone in the desert to reach a gas station, from where he called a friend to pick him up.