A full-time home invasion burglar who stole hard wallets was sentenced to 6 and a half years in prison for stealing $250 million in California.

BlockBeats News, May 7 — A federal court in the United States sentenced a California man to 78 months in prison for his involvement in a nationwide social engineering scam that resulted in over $250 million worth of crypto assets being stolen across the U.S.

According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, 20-year-old Marlon Ferro (alias “GothFerrari”) was sentenced this Wednesday and ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $2.5 million in restitution.

U.S. Prosecutor Jeanine Ferris Pirro stated that Ferro served as “the final tool for the criminal group.” Pirro said, “When his accomplices could not obtain victims’ crypto account access through deception or hack into digital accounts using hacking techniques, they turned to Ferro to break into hardware wallets.”

Prosecutors indicated that the criminal group combined online fraud with traditional home burglaries, stealing over $250 million in crypto assets from victims between late 2023 and early 2025.

A multi-year federal investigation uncovered that members of this social engineering crime ring engaged in a series of activities, including database hacking, targeting victims, making scam calls, money laundering, and home burglaries. The group mainly targeted victims holding large amounts of cryptocurrency. In February 2024, Ferro traveled to Texas and broke into a victim’s home, stealing a hardware wallet that contained approximately 100 Bitcoin (worth over $5 million at the time). The statement also said he assisted in laundering the proceeds through cryptocurrency trading platforms.