A ST. LOUIS MAN ADMITS A 2024 PLOT TO FORCE A BITCOIN TRANSFER AT A CONNECTICUT HOME — THE CREW BROUGHT AIR RIFLES AND A LAPTOP — UP TO 20 YEARS

Martel Williams, 27, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty on October 26, 2026, in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut, to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut announced it on October 27. The charge carries up to 20 years. No sentencing date is set, and he is free until then. He was arrested on July 17, 2026.

The plan, as prosecutors describe it, was not to hack anything. Between about August 21 and 24, 2024, Williams and two St. Louis associates drove to Connecticut, rented cars and bought air rifles, walkie-talkies and a laptop. They watched the target and his parents for two days. The idea was to force their way into the home, threaten him, and make him send cryptocurrency to accounts the plot’s coordinators controlled. They left, worried they had been caught on security cameras.

A second crew did not leave. On August 25, 2024, Danbury police arrested six men from Florida after a carjacking in which two people were beaten and kidnapped. The release says they were the parents of a person who took part in stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoin. The money was famous before the family was. The theft put a price on the people around it.

This is the attack no wallet fixes. Keys you hold are keys someone can try to make you use, and the laptop in the supply list was there for the transfer. Our October 17 piece on Jameson Lopp’s wrench attack list counts how often this now happens. Holding your own coins means planning for the door, not just the seed. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $80,606.