Odaily Planet Daily report: French Gendarmerie Tactical Units, in coordination with FBI agents, conducted a joint operation on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and arrested John Daghita, known online as "John" or "Lick," who is suspected of stealing cryptocurrency assets from a wallet controlled by the U.S. government. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest on social media and shared photos of the seized hardware wallets and a briefcase containing a large amount of U.S. cash.
The case stems from the disappearance of over $20 million in cryptocurrency from a federal custody wallet in October 2024, assets that had been seized during the investigation into the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack. Blockchain analysis traced approximately $24.9 million of the original seized funds to addresses controlled by the suspect, which are part of a larger cluster of addresses managing over $90 million in suspicious assets.
The investigation has advanced due to the work of blockchain researcher ZachXBT, who publicly traced transaction flows linked to the compromised government wallet in January 2026. The suspect’s father, Dean Daghita, is president of Command Services & Support, a company that received a contract from the U.S. Marshals Service in October 2024 to manage the custody and liquidation of certain categories of seized cryptocurrencies—a connection that has prompted scrutiny over internal system access permissions.