On a leafy Connecticut road in the summer of 2024, would-be kidnappers pulled a couple from their Lamborghini SUV, beat them in broad daylight and threw them into a van, only to be arrested shortly thereafter as multiple witnesses, including a passing off-duty FBI agent, called police.
The investigation would lead police to some sensational findings.
The attack turned out to be linked to a $245 million Bitcoin heist the month before involving the couple's son. And this week, a California cryptocurrency mogul who authorities say called himself “The Godfather” and had previously hired off-duty sheriff’s deputies to strongarm his enemies admitted to orchestrating the attempted abduction to get a piece of the son's stolen loot.
The California man, 25-year-old Adam Iza, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. Federal prosecutors are seeking a prison term of at least 14 years when he's sentenced.
Iza’s lawyer, William Paetzold, didn't immediately respond to Tuesday phone and email messages seeking comment.
The case is part of an increasing trend worldwide of cryptocurrency theft spilling over to violence.
A month before the abduction attempt, one of Iza's alleged co-conspirators got into a beef with the couple's son, Veer Chetal, at a Miami nightclub, according to an FBI affidavit. The man, James Schwab, then told an acquaintance to rob Chetal and his friends at their Miami rental home, authorities said. It's not clear if the robbery happened.
Schwab's lawyers didn't immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment.
Then came the Bitcoin heist. A few weeks after the nightclub fight, Chetal and two other men hatched an elaborate online scheme that involved impersonating technical support staff for Google and a cryptocurrency exchange. They managed to steal 4,100 Bitcoins — worth about $245 million at the time — from a Washington, D.C., resident, according to court documents.
The trio lived large after the theft, spending millions of dollars on cars, clothing, jewelry, rental mansions and nightclub parties before being arrested, prosecutors said. Chetal pleaded guilty last November and awaits sentencing, while the two other men have pleaded not guilty.
Iza and Schwab, meanwhile, came up with the idea to take Chetal's parents hostage in a bid to snatch some of his ill-gotten riches, the FBI said, citing information from informants. Schwab and Iza's brother, Saif Faiq, also were charged in the kidnapping attempt and pleaded not guilty.
They recruited six other men to go to Connecticut, paying for their travel and lodging, authorities said. A week after the Bitcoin heist, the group surveilled Chetal's parents hours before the kidnapping, according to court records.
Sushil and Radhika Chetal were driving in the Lamborghini on Aug. 25, 2024, near Danbury High School when they were rear-ended by a car. A white van then pulled in front of the SUV and several men surrounded them, police said.
The men pulled the Chetals out of the SUV and forced them into their van, beating Sushil Chetal with a baseball bat and dragging Radhika Chetal by her hair. The couple were bound with duct tape and the van drove off, according to court documents.
After witnesses called police, officers soon spotted the van and a chase ensued. The van eventually crashed and four of the men got out and fled on foot but were arrested shortly thereafter. The other two men were later found at a home the group had rented in a nearby town. The Chetals were taken to a hospital and released.
The six men, all from Florida, have pleaded guilty in connection with the kidnapping. Two have been sentenced to 11 years in prison and the others await sentencing.
Before Iza's arrest in the Connecticut case, he was under investigation by federal authorities in California for extorting money and property from victims in Los Angeles and elsewhere, court records show. He was charged in that case a month after the kidnapping and later pleaded guilty.
Iza, also known as Ahmed Faiq, was living in a mansion in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, calling himself The Godfather while running a crypto trading company, Zort. While stealing millions of dollars and funneling it through shell companies, Iza spent freely on luxury cars and other extravagances, including cosmetic surgery to lengthen his legs, prosecutors said.
Beginning in August 2021, Iza paid around $100,000 a month for his personal protection to a private security firm founded by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy that also employed other deputies, prosecutors said.
Iza, authorities said, hired off-duty deputies to act as enforcers against people with whom he had personal and business disputes. He used the deputies to extort, intimidate, set people up for arrest and abuse the legal process, prosecutors said.
The deputies used law enforcement databases to generate information about Iza's enemies and obtained search warrants under false pretenses, authorities said. On one occasion, two deputies held a victim at gunpoint inside Iza's home, pressuring the victim to transfer $25,000 to Iza's bank account, prosecutors said.
When he pleaded guilty in that case in January, Iza also admitted to stealing more than $37 million by fraudulently accessing the business manager accounts of Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook, and their lines of credit from 2020 to 2022. He awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy against rights and tax evasion.
His attorney in California, Josef Sadat, declined to comment Tuesday.
Several deputies also were charged in the investigation.
FILE - An advertisement for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is displayed on a building in Hong Kong on Nov. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats hammered Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin Tuesday during a heated Senate hearing, calling his threats to pull officers from some airports in so-called sanctuary cities “insane” and accusing his department of recklessly spending billions of dollars.
In his confirmation hearing earlier this year, Mullin portrayed himself as a steadying hand for the Department of Homeland Security after multiplecontroversies roiled his predecessor's tenure. But on Tuesday, Democrats expressed deep skepticism of his ability to change the department, specifically its approach to immigration enforcement and its commitment to the rule of law.
“I want to be very clear, Secretary Mullin, I’m watching closely to see what steps you now take as the new DHS secretary,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray. "Even now, we are seeing some outrageous proposals.”
Mullin, who just a few months ago was a senator alongside those criticizing him, defended himself, calling the attacks “outlandish” and “just flat wrong.”
Mullin’s appearance at the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security comes as the Senate is weighing legislation that would fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of President Donald Trump’s term in a maneuver that would bypass the need for support from Democrats, who have demanded restraints before agreeing to fund the agencies.
The attempt to fund those two agencies for the long term has been stalled over separate Republican opposition to a $1.776 billion settlement fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they have been politically prosecuted, a plan that was suspended on Tuesday.
Murray cited Mullin's threats to pull U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in states that the Trump administration deems “sanctuary cities,” meaning they don't cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Your plan to withdraw CBP officers from airports in cities that don’t roll over for Trump, that is insane," Murray said. "It would also spell economic crisis for blue and red states.”
Mullin has set the travel industry on edge with threats to withdraw CBP officers from airports in so-called “sanctuary cities.” There is no strict definition of what constitutes a sanctuary jurisdiction, but the term is generally used to describe cities and states that limit cooperation with ICE. Courts have rejected the idea of pulling funding from them in the past.
Mullin hasn't yet put forward a concrete proposal but has repeatedly suggested publicly that he's weighing the idea.
The U.S. Travel Association said Mullin also confirmed during a meeting with the group last month that he was considering such a move. The trade group had met with Mullin to discuss other Trump administration proposals affecting the travel industry.
U.S. Travel and the major airlines quickly condemned any move to pull CBP officers from airports, and even Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said it doesn’t make sense to him.
Such a move could upend international travel at a time when millions of visitors are gearing up to come to the U.S. for the World Cup.
Although Democrats criticized Mullin for the suggestion, he wasn't directly asked about the plan during the Tuesday hearing and didn't address the issue.
Murray also said she believed the White House still had significant influence over Mullin and DHS.
“I have yet to see you take back the reins from Stephen Miller,” she said, speaking of Trump's advisor who's one of the architects of the administration's immigration crackdown.
After a blistering opening statement from Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut questioning his commitment to the rule of law, Mullin diverted from his opening statement to defend himself and his department.
“When you start saying it’s unconstitutional, what’s unconstitutional that we’re doing? We swore to uphold the Constitution, just like you swore to the Constitution,” said Mullin, who blamed rhetoric like Murphy’s for a growing number of threats and attacks against his officers.
Murphy also pressed Mullin over treatment of detainees at an ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. Protesters and Democratic members of Congress have raised concerns about the treatment of immigrants being held in the facility.
Democratic members of Congress who've toured the facility say the food has sometimes contained maggots and criticized the level of medical care for detainees. Murphy added to those criticisms, saying detainees had described “spoiled food, delayed medical treatment, sewage backups" as well as "undue pressure to sign deportation paperwork.”
The Department of Homeland Security has denied any allegations of abuse or mistreatment inside the facility.
Mullin said Tuesday that there are currently about 700 detainees in Delaney which he said is licensed to hold about 1,000 people. He pushed back on the criticism, saying that health inspectors were just recently at the facility and found “zero violations.” Mullin also accused some of the protesters of attacking DHS officers.
“We had officers bit, we had officers scratched, we had officers poked, we had officers hit,” said Mullin.
Mullin also faced criticism about money disbursed for disaster relief through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, cited recent reports that Trump has approved more major disaster declarations for red states than blue.
“Do you think it’s right for a president to approve disaster aid based on whether a state voted for him, instead of the amount of damage that actually occurred in the state?” Peters asked Mullin.
“That’s not my experience with the president,” Mullin replied, pointing out that Trump last week issued a flurry of disaster approvals and denials to both red and blue states. Disaster aid “shouldn’t be politicized,” Mullin later added.
Republicans largely expressed support for Mullin's work, saying he was following the rule of law. He did face pushback from Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who asked whether DHS would be flexible on high fees and quotas for certain types of work visas.
Tuesday's hearing was the first time Mullin has appeared in the Senate since his confirmation hearing in March. Mullin, who was tapped by Trump to lead Homeland Security after his predecessor Kristi Noem was fired, will testify in the House about the budget on Wednesday.
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Associated Press writers Rio Yamat in Las Vegas and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego, California, contributed.
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin testifies during a Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security 2027 Budget Request for the Department of Homeland Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, listens as President Donald Trump speaks to the press after returning and stepping off Air Force One, Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
