Veer Chetal: - 18 years old - Danbury, Connecticut - quiet honor student - completed a "future lawyers" programme in 2022 - shy, kept to himself - fan of cars The other life: - secretly a member of the Com - an online network of cybercriminals - roots in Minecraft faction servers - teams competing to destroy each other - in-game items worth real money - fraud baked in from day one - where he met Malone Lam Senior Year: - shows up to school in a Corvette at 7:30am - then a BMW - then a Lamborghini Urus - Louis Vuitton shirts, Gucci shoes - tells classmates he made it trading crypto - shows them trades on his phone during homeroom - on Senior Skip Day rents a yacht in New York - photos holding wads of cash Police stop him in the Lamborghini, and calls his lawyer before answering a single question August 18, 2024: - a Washington D.C. resident gets a call - someone claiming to be from Google security - knows all his personal information - sounds completely legitimate - then a second call from someone claiming to be from Gemini - tells him his $4.5 million crypto account has been hacked - tells him to download a security programme - he downloads it - it is a remote desktop app - the caller now has access to his entire computer On that computer: - 4,100 Bitcoin - that day worth $243 million - gone in minutes The mistake: - they livestreamed the heist to friends - 1.5 hours of recordings - someone sends them to ZachXBT, the anonymous crypto detective - 1 clip captures the exact moment - "Oh my god! $243 million! Yes! Oh my god! Bro!" - in another clip someone flashes their Windows home screen - real name visible in the start menu pop-up - Veer Chetal While ZachXBT is watching: - Lam and the crew are in Los Angeles nightclubs - $100 bills raining from tables - $569,528 in 1 night - 31 luxury cars purchased - getting clubgoers to hold signs reading "TOLD U WE'D WIN" - Veer Chetal is about to start university at Rutgers August 25, 2024: - 1 week after the heist - Veer's parents Sushil and Radhika are house-hunting in Danbury - driving the family Lamborghini Urus - a white Honda Civic rams them from behind - a white van cuts in front - 6 masked men drag them toward the open door - beaten with a baseball bat - bound with duct tape The motive: - hold the parents ransom - for the money their son had stolen - Veer had been bragging to Com members - who were not his friends The capture: - van off-duty FBI agent lived nearby - followed the van - relayed the plates - the van crashed a mile later - parents found bound in the back - all 6 kidnappers arrested within 24 hours The end: - 5 of the 6 kidnappers plead guilty face 15 years - Veer Chetal arrested March 2025 - federal charge mug shot posted all over the internet - barely recognisable from the smiling kid The Lamborghini Urus: - sitting in a secure police lot in Danbury - still evidence - the same one he drove to school If only he'd kept quiet...