The Los Angeles Police Department has recovered $2.7 million worth of Bitcoin mining machines it alleges were stolen by a crime ring in a heist at the city’s airport.

The LAPD said on April 22 that detectives from its Cargo Theft Unit, along with the city’s Port Police, the railroad-based Union Pacific Police, and the city’s Airport Police, arrested Oscar David Borrero-Manchola and Yonaiker Rafael Martinez-Ramos over the thefts.

Authorities claimed the pair are “prominent members” of a South American crime ring tied to the theft and sale of stolen goods in and around Los Angeles.

The LAPD said searches of storage unit facilities in the San Fernando Valley, northeast of downtown Los Angeles, recovered $4 million worth of stolen goods, including the Bitcoin (BTC) mining rigs taken from Los Angeles International Airport “as the shipment was about to be loaded onto a plane headed to Hong Kong.”

Detectives also found and seized over $1.2 million in allegedly stolen tequila, clothing, shoes, speakers, coffee, body wash, and pet food.

Some of the allegedly stolen products were found at a storage facility in downtown Los Angeles. Source: Los Angeles Police Department

Borrero-Manchola and Martinez-Ramos were booked at Van Nuys Jail in the city’s northwest. Borrero-Manchola was cited for receiving stolen property and was released, while Martinez-Ramos was arrested on a no-bail warrant.

The LAPD said that “the investigation remains ongoing, and additional arrests may follow.”

Crypto mining rigs fetch top dollar 

The LAPD didn’t share the number of machines it seized or what model the rigs are, but a typical, current-model Bitcoin mining machine sells for between $3,000 to over $5,000.

Related: Americans lost $9.3B to crypto fraud in 2024 — FBI

US law enforcement has recovered stolen crypto mining rigs in the past. In July, the LAPD said it arrested a man it alleged was in possession of stolen Bitcoin mining rigs worth $579,000, seizing them from a cargo van and storage unit.

LAPD detectives arrested Bryan Thola, alleging his van contained stolen Bitcoin miners. Source: Los Angeles Police Department

One of the largest thefts of Bitcoin mining rigs happened in late 2017 and early 2018 in Iceland, where a group robbed data centers to make off with over 600 machines.

The rigs reportedly ended up in China, as just three months after they were stolen, Chinese authorities seized a similar number and model of mining rigs in Tianjin, a city southeast of the capital, Beijing.

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The host of The Wolf Of All Streets podcast, Scott Melker, says he’s received word that his face and name are being impersonated by scammers, with at least one victim duped out of $4 million. 

On April 23, the crypto investor said, “I’m sick,” reporting that he’d been contacted by a private investigator revealing that a client of his was scammed for $4 million by a Nigerian group using his name and face as bait. 

“They’ve apparently scammed a number of people,” Melker said, adding, “They sent him a fake driver’s license to prove it was me,” and used his X avatar as the photo.

The scammers used AI to generate the fake ID and used a fake but convincing-looking email account. 

“They do zoom calls with AI,” which are “apparently sophisticated,” said Melker, who added that the scammers have also spoofed accounts of his wife and kids to support identity confirmation. 

Fake driver’s license used by scammers. Source: Scott Melker 

Technical analysts “TheChartGuys” reported something similar, with a person getting scammed for $5,000 after the scammers replicated their voice using AI deepfakes. 

Fake ID is easy to spot, says trader

Crypto adviser and trader “Nebraskan Gooner” said a quick Google search easily reveals that the ID is fake. 

He pointed out that there were a few subtle discrepancies in the address and date formats. He said that it it sucks that these scammers are getting so sophisticated, but was “surprised how badly this was with how sophisticated of an operation these seems to be.” 

Cointelegraph reached out to Melker for further comments but did not receive an immediate response. 

Related: ‘Victim-blaming’ Americans can deter crypto scams reporting — Regulator

AI-generated scams are surging as the technology evolves. 

In March, California’s Department of Justice warned that it had discovered seven new types of crypto scams that involved AI. 

In February, Chainalysis said that 2025 will be a big year for AI scams, stating that generative AI is making scams “more scalable and affordable for bad actors to conduct.”

In a recent report, software giant Microsoft said that bad actors were using AI to “supercharge their scams.” 

“AI tools can scan and scrape the web for company information, helping cyberattackers build detailed profiles of employees or other targets to create highly convincing social engineering lures,” it stated. 

“It’s going to get exponentially worse, I would imagine,” lamented Melker. 

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A majority of crypto users are willing to allow artificial intelligence agents to manage part of their investment portfolios, according to the results of a recent CoinGecko survey.

Among the 2,632 crypto participants surveyed, 87% said they would let AI agents manage at least a tenth of their crypto portfolio, CoinGecko’s April 23 report shows.

Around half the respondents said they were willing to let an AI agent manage half their portfolio or less.

“This suggests that despite having doubts as to how safe or secure AI agents are, crypto users are still mainly curious about the technology and want to try using them for trading or investing,” CoinGecko research analyst Yuqian Lim said.

At the same time, around 36% of survey participants said they would allow AI agents to manage the majority of their holdings. A smaller group, roughly 14.5%, were willing to leave their entire crypto portfolio in the digital hands of an AI agent.

A small number said they were willing to let AI control their entire portfolio. Source: CoinGecko

“In other words, 1 in 7 participants either think they can completely trust AI agents with all of their crypto, or believe the potential profits will outweigh the risks, or simply have a high risk tolerance for their crypto holdings,” Lim said.

Mixed opinions on human vs AI trading

However, opinions were mixed on whether AI agents would be better than humans at crypto trading and investing overall. There was a roughly even split, with half of the respondents saying AI agents would be better than humans at crypto trading and investing most of the time.

“That said, the remaining half of survey participants believed AI does not have an edge over humans in the crypto market yet, which suggests that opinions are still divided over this comparison,” Lim said.

About 13%, or 1 in 8, said they weren’t comfortable leaving any of their portfolios for management by AI or thought they could manage their crypto stash better than an AI agent. 

The same survey found that participants had very mixed views on whether AI agents could be trusted with access to people’s crypto wallets.

Despite many of the respondents answering that they were happy to allow AI access to their crypto, there were still trust issues. Source: CoinGecko

“Specifically, 37.5% indicated that they do not trust AI agents with their crypto wallets, while a slightly lower 34.5% said they can be trusted and 27.9% were neutral on the matter,” Lim said.

Related: AI, blockchain convergence to bring ‘watershed moments’ in 2025

Agentic AI is already being used to build Web3 applications, launch tokens, and interact with people autonomously. Some platforms have also been exploring the use of AI agents for trading.

Last December, crypto industry execs told Cointelegraph they expected AI agents to transform Web3 in 2025, flagging crypto staking and onchain trading as emerging early use cases. However, there was also speculation that AI would face headwinds, including technical challenges, regulatory hurdles, and centralization. 

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