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CASE 323  |  Crypto investor  |  May 1, 2025  |  USA
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DATABASE RECORD
  id                  323
  date                May 1, 2025
  original_date       mayo 1, 2025
  year                2025
  month               5
  quarter             2025-Q2
  victim              Crypto investor
  location            Las Vegas, Nevada
  country             USA
  scenario            Kidnapping
  description         Florida teens kidnap Las Vegas man, drive him to Arizona desert, steal $4M in cryptocurrency
  kidnappings         1
  violence_torture    1
  drugs_alcohol       0
  weapons             0
  theft               1
  life_taken          0
  money_wanted        $4M
  coin_type           crypto
  reports             8News
  notes               victim hosted crypto dinner, kidnapped on th eway home from the event. driven to desert and stolen 4M usd in crypto from his wallets. Released in the desert, walked a few miles to a gas station 
  has_processed_date  0
  created_at          2025-11-14 09:05:23
  (flag legend: 'kidnappings' is the DETENTION flag — 1 when the victim was held against
   their will at any point, tied, locked in, held at gunpoint or taken away; it is NOT the
   same as the 'Kidnapping' scenario, which means taken away and held. See README, Definitions.)

AI SUMMARY  [revised on review, verified against the sources in this file. Live DB still holds the shorter bulk-import summary — apply this to it.]
  **Victims:** A crypto investor in Las Vegas who had been hosting a cryptocurrency event at a business in Downtown Las Vegas earlier that night.
  
  **Attackers:** Three teenagers — Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, both 16 and from Pasco County, Florida, plus a third teenager who had since left the United States — with a fourth person appearing to direct them by speakerphone. Ashraf and Fletcher were certified as adults and charged with robbery, kidnapping and extortion.
  
  **Attack Method:** In November, after the event, the victim returned to his apartment complex; the three approached and forced him into the back seat of their vehicle at gunpoint, put a towel over his head and told him not to look at them, then drove him more than 70 miles across the Nevada border to White Hills, Arizona.
  
  **Violence Used:** Detention — he was held at gunpoint and hooded, and told he would live if he complied but that they had his father and would kill him if he did not.
  
  **Crypto Demanded/Stolen:** They forced his passwords and account access and took about $4 million in cryptocurrency and NFTs.
  
  **Status:** Released in the Arizona desert, he walked about five miles alone to a gas station and called a friend. Investigators (with FBI assistance) tracked a suspect vehicle from Florida; Ashraf was released on electronic monitoring and Fletcher's bail set at $4 million, while the third teenager remained abroad. (This appears to be the same incident recorded separately as case 365.)

LINKED SOURCES
  [url]  https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/florida-teens-kidnap-las-vegas-man-drive-him-to-arizona-desert-steal-4m-in-cryptocurrency-police/

NOTES ON THIS FILE
  * matched to sheet row 227: reviewed and approved individually

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ARTICLE 1
  Source   8News
  URL      https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/florida-teens-kidnap-las-vegas-man-drive-him-to-arizona-desert-steal-4m-in-cryptocurrency-police/
  Origin   reported_K&R sheet, row 227, column "Articles"
  Length   3,302 chars
  Trimmed  site furniture removed on review; kept text is verbatim. Full original (3,894 chars) archived, sha256 24059d28fa4a07fdba4182c589eaaf0af3199d8a2473b5295a61c9914d7eddf7
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Florida teens kidnap Las Vegas man, drive him to Arizona desert, steal $4M in cryptocurrency: police
2 in custody, 1 on the run, prosecutors say
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Three teenagers are accused of kidnapping a man at gunpoint, driving him to a remote desert area an hour outside of Las Vegas, and stealing $4 million in cryptocurrency and other digital assets, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.
Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, both 16 and from Pasco County, Florida; and a third teenager, face charges including robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, records said. A juvenile court judge previously certified Ashraf and Fletcher as adults.
The third teenager was no longer in the United States, a prosecutor said during Fletcher’s probable cause hearing Friday. The men are accused of stealing $4 million in cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), prosecutors said.
Last November, a man called police saying three young men kidnapped him at gunpoint, drove him to a remote desert area, and stole millions of dollars from him, documents said.
Police suspect the three young men then drove the victim across the Nevada border to White Hills, Arizona — more than 70 miles and an hour’s drive from Las Vegas. The victim walked five miles alone in the desert to reach a gas station where he called a friend to pick him up, documents said. (KLAS)
That night, the victim was hosting a cryptocurrency-related event at a business in Downtown Las Vegas, police said. The victim then returned to his apartment complex and parked his car. The three suspects then approached him and forced him into the back seat of their vehicle, police said.
“[The victim] was told if he complied, he would live to see another day, and if he did not comply, they had his dad and would kill him,” documents said. “[The victim] had a towel placed over his head and was told by the suspects not to look at them.”
The young men demanded the victim’s passwords and threatened him for access to his financial accounts, police said. It also appeared that another person was directly speaking to the young men through a phone call, which the victim could hear through a speakerphone.
Metro investigators later tracked a possible suspect vehicle traveling from Florida to Nevada, specifically including the locations of the victim’s apartment. In a separate vehicle stop in Mississippi, a gun involving a suspect’s family member matched one in one of the teenager’s social media profiles, police said.
The three teenagers were also involved in disturbances together at a Florida high school, police said.
In one report from last summer, the young men “were reported as swearing in English and Arabic, and [Ashraf] was observed shoulder checking a school resource officer,” and screaming at an assistant principal, documents said.
During Friday’s hearing, Fletcher’s public defender argued for her client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Daniel Westmeyer set bail at $4 million.
During a hearing Tuesday in Ashraf’s case, his attorney, Ross Goodman, argued for his client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Noreen Demonte ordered Ashraf’s release with electronic monitoring, records said.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June. The FBI assisted in the investigation, documents said.

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FETCHED ARTICLE 1  [AUTO-TRIMMED — UNREVIEWED]
  !! Furniture was cut by a script keyed on this case's record, not by a person.
  !! It may still carry passages about OTHER cases from a round-up article.
  !! The full page extract is kept in staging/ if a cut needs revisiting.
  Source     8newsnow.com
  URL        https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/florida-teens-kidnap-las-vegas-man-drive-him-to-arizona-desert-steal-4m-in-cryptocurrency-police/
  Field      url
  Retrieved  2026-09-05T13:26:04+00:00 via Wayback Machine snapshot 20260209073843, deterministic extraction (HTTP None)
  Language   unknown
  Kept       paragraphs headline [0] + 2-16 of 33
  Length     3,314 chars
  Integrity  sha256 929fd936d71bf1957e50371422fca5d07781f5a959865230442f04cbab74012b
  Trimmed    AUTO-TRIMMED, unreviewed: kept paragraphs 2-16 plus headline [0]; dropped 1 leading and 16 trailing paragraphs. Case-term hits on page: 18.
  Note       live URL was BLOCKED on the first pass; text comes from an archived copy dated 2026-02-09
  Archive    http://web.archive.org/web/20260209073843/https://www.8newsnow.com/investigators/florida-teens-kidnap-las-vegas-man-drive-him-to-arizona-desert-steal-4m-in-cryptocurrency-police/
  Caveat     retrieved from a Wayback Machine snapshot, not the live page. The
             snapshot date is in the method line; the live URL was unreadable.
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ORIGINAL (unknown, verbatim as retrieved)

Florida teens kidnap Las Vegas man, steal $4M in cryptocurrency: police

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Three teenagers are accused of kidnapping a man at gunpoint, driving him to a remote desert area an hour outside of Las Vegas, and stealing $4 million in cryptocurrency and other digital assets, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

Belal Ashraf and Austin Fletcher, both 16 and from Pasco County, Florida; and a third teenager, face charges including robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, records said. A juvenile court judge previously certified Ashraf and Fletcher as adults.

The third teenager was no longer in the United States, a prosecutor said during Fletcher’s probable cause hearing Friday. The men are accused of stealing $4 million in cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), prosecutors said.

Last November, a man called police saying three young men kidnapped him at gunpoint, drove him to a remote desert area, and stole millions of dollars from him, documents said.

That night, the victim was hosting a cryptocurrency-related event at a business in Downtown Las Vegas, police said. The victim then returned to his apartment complex and parked his car. The three suspects then approached him and forced him into the back seat of their vehicle, police said.

“[The victim] was told if he complied, he would live to see another day, and if he did not comply, they had his dad and would kill him,” documents said. “[The victim] had a towel placed over his head and was told by the suspects not to look at them.”

The young men demanded the victim’s passwords and threatened him for access to his financial accounts, police said. It also appeared that another person was directly speaking to the young men through a phone call, which the victim could hear through a speakerphone.

Police suspect the three young men then drove the victim across the Nevada border to White Hills, Arizona — more than 70 miles and an hour’s drive from Las Vegas. The victim walked five miles alone in the desert to reach a gas station where he called a friend to pick him up, documents said.

Metro investigators later tracked a possible suspect vehicle traveling from Florida to Nevada, specifically including the locations of the victim’s apartment. In a separate vehicle stop in Mississippi, a gun involving a suspect’s family member matched one in one of the teenager’s social media profiles, police said.

The three teenagers were also involved in disturbances together at a Florida high school, police said.

In one report from last summer, the young men “were reported as swearing in English and Arabic, and [Ashraf] was observed shoulder checking a school resource officer,” and screaming at an assistant principal, documents said.

During Friday’s hearing, Fletcher’s public defender argued for her client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Daniel Westmeyer set bail at $4 million.

During a hearing Tuesday in Ashraf’s case, his attorney, Ross Goodman, argued for his client to serve house arrest. Las Vegas Justice Court Judge Noreen Demonte ordered Ashraf’s release with electronic monitoring, records said.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for June. The FBI assisted in the investigation, documents said.

8 News Now Investigator David Charns can be reached at dcharns@8newsnow.com.

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generated from attacks-export-Gart-website.json + reported_K&R  |  case 323
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