Veer Chetal, a 19-year-old from Danbury, CT, previously charged and convicted in a $245 million cryptocurrency fraud, is now accused of participating in a separate $2 million scam while cooperating with federal authorities.
Chetal, currently in custody at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia, had pleaded guilty in November 2024 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. He was released under certain conditions, including surrendering his passport. However, in January 2025, he was taken back into custody after violating his release terms.
Federal investigators say Chetal took part in another scam on Oct. 21, 2024, in which a New Jersey resident was deceived into handing over the seed phrase to her crypto wallet. Roughly $2 million in cryptocurrency was stolen using the same tactics Chetal had employed in his earlier crimes. Authorities traced $200,000 of the stolen funds to a gambling account linked to Chetal’s New Jersey residence through a VPN failure.
Although he admitted to receiving the funds, Chetal claimed they came from a third party, but acknowledged he should have suspected the money’s criminal origins.
The previous scheme Chetal pleaded guilty to involved two online co-conspirators — Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano — whom he met while playing Minecraft. They used social engineering tactics to pose as support agents from major companies like Google and Yahoo!, ultimately stealing hundreds of millions in cryptocurrency, including a $245 million Bitcoin theft from a Washington, D.C. man on August 18, 2024.
In response to his son’s crimes, Chetal’s parents were victims of an attempted kidnapping by seven men, allegedly as part of a ransom plot related to the cryptocurrency theft.
Despite the charges and the near-certain risk of deportation (Chetal is an Indian national), he is cooperating with federal prosecutors and has agreed to testify against his co-defendants.
