Santa Ana Man Marlon Ferro, 'GothFerrari,' Sentenced to 78 Months in $250 Million Cryptocurrency Heist: Burglar Who Stole Hardware Homes' Wallets Must Pay $2.5 Million
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced that Marlon Ferro, 20, of Santa Ana, California, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 78 months in prison for his role in a sprawling social engineering conspiracy that stole well over $250 million in cryptocurrency from victims across the United States. Ferro, known as 'GothFerrari,' pleaded guilty on October 17, 2025, before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to one count of conspiracy to participate in a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization. Judge Kollar-Kotelly also ordered three years of supervised release and $2.5 million in restitution.
'Marlon Ferro served as the criminal enterprise's instrument of last resort. When his co-conspirators couldn't deceive victims into handing over access to their cryptocurrency or hack their way into digital accounts, they turned to Ferro to break into homes and steal hardware wallets outright,' said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro. 'This scheme blended sophisticated online fraud with old-fashioned burglary to drain victims of millions of dollars in digital assets.'
According to court documents, a multi-year federal investigation uncovered an enterprise that defrauded victims of more than $250 million in cryptocurrency between late 2023 and early 2025. Its members, based in California, Connecticut, New York, Florida and abroad, played specialized roles including database hacking, target identification, fraudulent phone calls, money laundering and residential burglary. Operatives targeted people believed to hold significant cryptocurrency, manipulating them into surrendering access to their digital wallets; when victims stored assets in hardware wallets that cannot be accessed remotely, the enterprise turned to Ferro.
In February 2024, Ferro traveled to Winnsboro, Texas, broke into a victim's home and stole a hardware wallet containing about 100 bitcoin, then worth more than $5 million, laundering the funds through cryptocurrency exchanges. In July 2024, he flew to New Mexico, surveilled a residence for several days with a cell phone positioned outside to monitor the victim, and, once co-conspirators tracking the victim through his iCloud account signaled he had left, smashed a window with a brick and searched for the target hardware wallet; he was captured on the victim's home surveillance camera.
Ferro was also a key money launderer for the enterprise. He used fraudulent identification obtained from a foreign national to open a digital payment card account at a geo-blocked platform, bought more than $255,000 in designer clothing for co-conspirators with stolen funds, and, after a leader was arrested in September 2024, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency from other members, converted it to cash through illicit exchanges to pay the leader's attorneys, and arranged Hermès Birkin bags for the leader's girlfriend. Stolen funds also bought nightclub services of up to $500,000 per evening, luxury watches, rental homes in Los Angeles, the Hamptons and Miami, private jet rentals and a fleet of exotic cars valued from $100,000 to $3.8 million.
Ferro was arrested on May 13, 2025, in possession of two firearms and a fake identification document. The case was investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, the FBI's Washington Field Office and IRS Criminal Investigation's Washington Field Office, with support from the FBI's Los Angeles and Miami field offices. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher Howland and David Liss prosecuted the case, docket 24cr417.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于华盛顿特区的E. Barrett Prettyman美国法院大楼入口（本案审理地，哥伦比亚特区联邦地区法院），门额清晰可见。照片：Tony Webster，CC BY 2.0，经Wikimedia Commons。当事人官方稿内照片为监控画面，不单独取用，以审理地标准建筑图代之。
