Two Brothers Sentenced in Minnesota Cryptocurrency Kidnapping Case Involving Over $8 Million

TechFlow reported on October 30 that, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Prosecutor's Office for the District of Minnesota, brothers Raymond Christian Garcia and Isiah Angelo Garcia from Texas were sentenced on October 29 by U.S. District Judge Donovan W. Frank to 180 and 186 months in prison, respectively, for holding a family hostage at gunpoint and extorting cryptocurrency in Grant, Minnesota, in September 2025. The two pleaded guilty on June 18, 2026.

According to court documents, the two traveled from Texas to Minnesota on September 19, 2025, took a family hostage at gunpoint in their home, bound them with zip ties, and detained them for more than nine hours while demanding cryptocurrency transfers. Because the initial transfer amount fell short of expectations, the pair coerced the victims to drive to their vacation home in northern Minnesota to retrieve additional cryptocurrency storage devices and continue transferring funds, ultimately forcing the victims to transfer over $8 million in cryptocurrency. After the victims' son called the police, the suspects fled the scene and were later arrested near Houston, Texas.