09/14/2026
Connecticut Teen at the Center of a $230 Million Bitcoin Heist
A Danbury teenager who had recently graduated from Immaculate High School and once participated in Harvard’s Future Lawyers Program was already involved in crypto fraud by late 2023, later admitting to roughly 50 additional thefts totaling about $3 million.
Then came the massive score. In August 2024, Veer Chetal, Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano posed as tech-support representatives and tricked a Washington, D.C. victim into giving up access to more than 4,100 Bitcoin, worth over $230 million at the time.
The money quickly started flowing. The group bought exotic cars, luxury watches, rented mansions and private jets, and spent heavily at nightclubs. Lam reportedly spent more than half a million dollars at a Los Angeles club in a single night, while Chetal bought his parents a Lamborghini Urus.
Within days, the enormous theft had attracted the attention of crypto prodigy Adam Iza, who called himself “The Godfather” and began plotting to get his hands on some of the stolen Bitcoin by targeting Chetal’s family.
On August 25, 2024, Chetal’s parents were driving their Lamborghini in Danbury when they were rear-ended and boxed in by a van. Men dragged them from the SUV and drove away.
Witnesses called police, officers located the van, and the kidnapping quickly unraveled. The six Florida men involved were arrested, and investigators traced the motive back to the Bitcoin theft and eventually to Iza and others behind the operation.
As the broader investigation expanded, federal raids on Chetal’s parents’ Danbury home and his New Jersey apartment uncovered more than $553,000 in cash, over 20 watches, jewelry, designer goods and more than $39 million in cryptocurrency.
Chetal has since pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Iza was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Authorities have recovered only a fraction of the stolen bitcoin.
